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DOC helicopters carry poison bait that will be dropped on Motutapu and Rangitoto Islands to eradicate rats and mice - Source: Reuters -
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Hundreds of protesters gathered across New Zealand on Sunday to voice their opposition against aerial drops of 1080 poison.
Protest rallies were held in 17 locations calling for conservation and animal health officials to stop aerial drops of 1080 poison to eradicate pests.
The protesters say aerial drops of poisons should be abolished and replaced with sustainable alternative pest eradication and trapping programmes.
This is despite the Erma decision in 2007 to allow the continued aerial use of 1080 - the chemical sodium monofluoroacetate - because it is a "necessary evil" with no economic alternative for culling possums.
Rally organiser Thomas Grieve said one of the best turnouts was on Waiheke Island in Auckland's Hauraki Gulf, where about 400 people turned out.
He said there was also reports of a strong turnout in Hamilton, where protesters included the Graf brothers, who had made a documentary about the topic.
Numbers were less in Auckland. About 60 people, a significant number of whom were of east Asian descent, were seen at the beginning of the march heading up Queen St carrying a big banner saying "stop aerial drops, it kills more than pests".
Grieve said numbers got up to about 300 at the end of the rally at Albert Park, but it was still a little disappointing. "I think Aucklanders decided to not get their raincoats on," he said.
He was unsure how many attended at Wellington as well as smaller centres, a number of which were on the West Coast of the South Island.
Organised by Poison Free New Zealand, the rallies were promoted with a protest song, Enuf is Enuf.
Grieve said the protesters were not against 1080 poison itself but rather the aerial dropping of it.
He said it could impact on creatures other than those it was intended for, whereas bait stations and ground-based poisoning was much more effective.
"It's against World Health Organisation guidelines and it's not appropriate," he told NZPA.
"The Department of Conservation says they only go aerially to areas that are hard to get to, but they've just done a drop on Motutapu Island (next to Rangitoto on Waitemata Harbour) and that's 97 percent pasture."
New Zealand uses about two tonnes of the poison annually, 80% of world production.
A review of aerial dropping of 1080 poison by the quasi-judicial Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) in 2007 concluded it was a "necessary evil" with no economic alternative for culling possums.
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