1080 BlackMail Investigation Should Range Wide

A recreational hunting advocacy Sporting Hunters Outdoor Trust (SHOT) has called on police to target all avenues of possible suspects in tracking down the culprit responsible for the blackmail threat to contaminate baby formula with 1080.

SHOT spokesman Laurie Collins of Hector on the West Coast said identifying the culprit in the 1080 blackmail in which baby food powder was reportedly laced with industrial strength 1080 would be a challenge to police since there were several possible motives.

“Initially the finger of suspicion was pointed at hunters, but there’s other possible motives among the non-hunting public,” he said.

It was understandable hunters should be angry about 1080 as not only deer, but anything living from insects to birds and animals were poisoned and killed or left with sub-lethal doses that made creatures sick and incapable of breeding.

“It’s a nasty, slow, cruel poison,” said Laurie Collins. “Worse still is there’s no justification to use it. There are not 70 million possums as DOC and Forest and Bird fanatically shout. Hunters aren’t just worried about deer. They hate silent, morgue-like forests with no birdlife. It’s depressing to be in an area after it’s been top dressed with 1080.""

The cruel nature of an agonising death from 1080 was horrific and many dogs had been poisoned and died a convulsive death often in front of their owner.

“Who could blame a pet owner from being raging angry?”

A Forest Service trainee in the 1950s, Laurie Collins was involved with the first use of 1080 in New Zealand at the Caples Valley near Queenstown. He came to realise that it was a cruel, indiscriminate toxin and that there was no reason to use it as it had no semblance to sensible wildlife management.

“The pest and predator threats are just hype and spin to keep the gravy train going for bureaucrats. Native falcons are a predator of tui. So what?"

He said there were other possibilities in the motivation to sabotage milk powder exports particularly since the 1080 used was apparently “raw industrial strength’ suggesting the saboteur had been inside the 1080 importation from USA and storage in New Zealand.

One possibility was an overseas country seizing the opportunity from the "destructive, demented use of 1080" to undermine NZ’s exports branding of "100% pure” perhaps to attack NZ’s dairy exports, which at that time were flourishing.

“The point is New Zealand uses over 90% of the world’s 1080, so bizarre since New Zealand is only the size of one of the USA’s 48 states. To other countries and many here, New Zealand’s use of 1080 is environmentally stupid and contradicts our clean and green marketing branding."

The second possibility were fanatical, zealous pro-1080 groups wanting to “frame” and discredit the growing public opposition to 1080.

"Forest and Bird for example, has likened 1080 to cups of tea and salt and vinegar potato chips inferring 1080 does no harm. That is so stupid and off-the-planet. Now Forest and Bird I’m sure would never do it as an organisation but some individual members are so crazed in their wild claims that you cannot discount the possibility from any person anywhere."

Laurie Collins said another possibility was government department and agencies seeking to quash public 1080 opposition to keep jobs, salaries and empires intact.

"The strong clue for police is the raw industrial nature of the 1080 used. Many consider it points to an inside job, since raw 1080 almost certainly is only accessible to people involved, ” he said. “After all the 1080 importation and storage at Whanganui is done by Animal Control Products, a government SOE,"

Meanwhile police were still reported to be investigating with DNA samples taken from some ”anti-1080” activists on the West Coast.

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