The Conservation Department says that Roadkill is not a good indicator of 1080 Veneam is working in southwestern Westland, where a weekend count showed 123 kinned skunks on state road 6.
Most were told between Bruce Bay and Wanaka, especially in the Paringa area, by a Greymouth Star reporter in January this year.
The outdoor author and longstanding activist Alan Simmons, from Turangi, traveled through the southwest of Westland last month and said the dead skunk spread the road.
“If any member of the DOC team is concerned with stopping and taking all the kicks killed along the road, he would need a large ute or a small truck.”
In recent years, the doc and its zipper out of the branch (zero invasive predators) have increased the 1080 venom’s falls, with a strong focus on the west coast, Simmons said.
“How many millions of dollars and thousands of tons of deadly poison do they need to recklessly hire people’s untouched natural environment to get some skunks?
“It looks like cars are doing a better job. From Fox Glacier to Wanaka on March 30, I told 87 kpans dead – and I’m sure I didn’t tell them all.”
He suggested that drivers drove the west coast with a young family could keep the children busy counting dead skunk on the road.
“This would also illustrate people who really pay taxes their tax dollars are wasted in bureaucratic insufficiency while people fight for a lack of housing or hunger and health and education systems are fighting for proper financing.”
He asked the government, doc and zip to wake up “or to admit that his poison strategy is not working.”
“On the contrary, they should be looking at the skunk as a feature for skin and meat, the last for the manufacture of pet foods and even as a meat protein for human consumption.”
However, Doc South Westland District Operations Manager Wayne Costello said skunks are not a valid representation of skunk and predators control efforts and success in southwestern Westland.
Doc and Zip did not do any skunk control near the roads between the Fox River and the Paringa River, he said.
The control of predators and skunk across the country has been prioritized based on biodiversity values at each location.
He said the referred South Westland area (Fox Glacier to Paringa) did not qualify enough compared to other places financed to receive what were finite resources for predator control.
The control of the skunk was done in the Voles of the Copland and Karangarua River, south and inside Glacier Fox, to protect southern rat and other species in these valleys, but these areas were remote.
“Predator and skunk control programs are underway in the Paringa River to Haast Pass, the entire Arawhata and Haast Kiwi Sanctuaria Valley, the entire Landsborough valley and the Cascade River area to Big Bay. The total area of predators control in southern Westland is approximately 265,000ha.”
Costello contested that the skunk numbers were increasing. In unreshed areas, the numbers are likely to be high, but relatively stable.
Next winter, predator control will be performed at 144,000ha of “priority places” in the southwest.
“This will not include the area observed with kicks killed on the road, as this is not one of the areas currently financed for protection,” said Costello.
“It is fair to suppose that the densities of the skunk in areas that do not receive gambá control will be relatively high and relatively stable. There is a wide opportunity in these areas for people to attach the skunk.”
