What would happen if we stopped using 1080?

An interview with Kevin Hackwell from Forest & Bird

What would happen if we stopped using 1080?

(Kevin)

If we stop using 1080, it would have a huge impact on a whole lot of species. We have just gone through a beech mast year where beech seeds very heavily…does this sort of thing every five to ten years… really heavy seeding. That event leads to a huge increase in population of rats and mice. This leads to a huge explosion in the population of stoats.

What happens is the seeds disappear and you get the rats and the stoats turning on the other birds. In the past mast years, we have seen threat species go locally extinct. There’s no question that is one of the reasons why we have so many threats species predated by these events. So, if we didn’t have 1080, we wouldn’t be able to deal with those because we are talking about having to manage those pests over very large areas to protect threatened species.

So it's crucial, really important that we have 1080.