WELLINGTON - A 10-year, $440 million pest management programme will be set up to stop the spread of tuberculosis among the country's animal wildlife.
Don Linklater, the chairman of the Animal Health Board, which administers the country's pest management strategy, said urgent priority must be given to controlling TB-infected populations ofpossums, pigs, deer and ferrets.
"Unless this trend can be reversed, infected herd numbers will soon begin to climb, putting much of the good work of recent years at risk."
Mr Linklater said bovine TB was the single biggest threat to New Zealand's reputation as a quality exporter of meat and dairy products.
The board identified Waikato, Taranaki, Tasman, West Coast and Otago as high-risk areas for the spread of the disease by wild animals.
The board's communications manager, Nick Hancox, said that since 1996 the board's strategy had reduced the number of TB-infected cattle and deer herds by 57 per cent, but the rates of TB spread by feral animals had grown.
The revised strategy would expand possum and ferret control to try to reduce the prevalence of herd TB to less than 0.2 per cent.
A request for more funding in the 2000-2001 financial year would be a useful indicator of whether the Government was prepared to foot a higher biosecurity bill.
