Victorian Animal Justice Party MP Andy Meddick is today moving a motion in the Victorian Parliament to ban the use of 1080 poison in Victoria’s Alpine Region.
The Legislative Council is sitting in Bright in Victoria’s North East today.
It follows the discovery of a number of endangered alpine dingoes in north-east Victoria, which Mr Meddick said are vulnerable to the bait.
"A lot of those endangered species and threatened species that survived are going to need every chance they can get. We have an opportunity to get rid of our 1080 poison in that environment, encourage the alpine dingo to do the job, to actually come back to numbers that are sustainable in that area, and to protect those other threatened native fauna." Mr Meddick said.
Many farmers support the use of 1080 and argue that it is a critical tool to protect their stock.
Australia is the second biggest user in the world of 1080 and it is extensively used in the Victorian Alps with both aerial and targeted ground-based applications. There is a potentially greater risk to non-target species with aerial application of baits than occurs with ground baiting where baits are mostly buried. Randomly dispersed baits on the surface of the ground can easily be found by other animals. Also, wild dogs can take longer to encounter the baits. Baits made from dried meat can remain toxic for many months, especially in drier regions where degradation of 1080 is slow.
There is a misnomer that native animals are quite tolerant to 1080 because they have evolved alongside fluoroacetate bearing plants – whilst this may be true in Western Australia, it does not hold for South Eastern Australia where the toxic plants do not occur and, consequently, the endemic wildlife has not developed a genetic tolerance.
For example, the LD50* of 1080 for Western Grey Kangaroos is 47 whilst for Eastern Grey Kangaroos it is a mere 0.29. For Bobtail skink in Western Australia, it is more than 800 whilst for the same species in South Australia it is 201.
1080 is an effective (i.e., lethal) but cruel and inhumane poison, particularly when ingested by domestic or wild dogs and dingos with death reportedly taking up to 48 hours.
Parks Victoria has outlined that it aims to minimise the use of 1080 in parks, and only uses it where necessary while working with relevant legal requirements, regulatory frameworks, health and safety standards, and animal welfare considerations.
“Parks Victoria has a legal and moral obligation to remove feral animals from protected areas," Parks Victoria Manager Conservation Programs, Ben Fahey, said.
"We use a range of control methods to protect and improve the health of the natural environment within our parks, one of which is 1080 bait products.
"All efforts are made to maintain human safety and to minimise the chance of impacts on non-target species during every feral animal control program.”
* LD50 Lethal dose (LD50) is the amount of an ingested substance that kills 50 percent of a test sample. It is expressed in mg/kg, or milligrams of substance per kilogram of body weight.
Further Reading:
Western Australian Department of Agriculture and Food Fact Sheet – 1080 Characteristics and Use.
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