Dog exclusion ends
Dogs are now allowed back into Greater Wellington Regional Council (GW) managed land at the Hutt Water Collection Area, the western part of Kaitoke Regional Park and the Akatarawa Saddle area after last August’s aerial 1080 drop to control possums.
All warning signs are being taken down this week (March 8-12, 2010).
Dogs were excluded from these three areas (comprising 11,000 hectares in total) on August 7, 2009, until GW could be certain that all poisoned possums had completely decomposed and were no longer a threat to scavenging dogs.
Undigested 1080 baits are often left in a possum’s gut after it has died from 1080 poisoning. This is a threat to any animal that might eat the contents of the gut. The scavenging nature of dogs makes them particularly susceptible.
GW General Manager Utilities and Services says cooler than normal spring and summer conditions meant some of the possum carcasses took seven months to break down.
“We monitor carcasses in the operation area and have them independently tested until there is no longer any poison residue,” says Mr Kennedy.
“The operation area covered land as high as 1300 metres above sea level and carcasses up in these cold and wet areas took a long time to decompose.
“Seven months is a long time to exclude dogs, but no one wants to take risks regarding the wellbeing of a family’s pet.”
The possum control operation was to help safeguard the public water supply and protect forest biodiversity.