Possums In The 21st Century Essay

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Introduction
1080 poison is a poison used to kill possums as they are seen as a pest. Possums were brought into New Zealand to start a fur industry. The first surviving possums were brought from Australia in 1858 to the South Island. In 1921 it was made illegal to bring possums into New Zealand as there were possums living in 450 parts of New Zealand. By 1946 possums were officially declared a pest. In the 1960s the population of possums were in the South Island with hardly any in the north island. 30 years later the were 10-15 million possums living in the north island. Possums are a pest because they eat leaves, leaf buds, fruit, eggs, birds, insects and snails. To control the amount of possums, 1080 poison was trialled in New Zealand in 1954. In 1957 1080 bait was considered suitable for mammalian pest control.

The issue
New Zealand is a big consumer of 1080 poison. 1080 (sodium fluoroacetate) poison is used to kill and control the population of possums and other pests. People who have seen possums poisoned by 1080 claim that the possums suffer “seizures and tremors” but Doc claims …show more content…

1080 poison can be diluted in water and it dilutes quite quickly. The active components are natural and can be found in plants in Australia, South America and Africa. The poison is good to use as we do not have any native ground dwelling mammals in New Zealand. The only native mammals in New Zealand are bats. Our native animals such as, birds snails, lizards are vulnerable to possums as possums are tree climbing predators. Monitoring shows that most of New Zealand's native species are not at a big risk of being killed by this poison. Some species such as the kea, weak, tomtits and robins have eaten the 1080 bait and some have died due to this. DOC is taking steps to try and stop this though. By controlling the area the 1080 bait it placed to minimise the amount of native species killed by 1080

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