By SIMON COLLINS
Foxes, wolves and other wild pests may soon be choking to death on a New Zealand-made poison.
The cyanide poison, Feratox, already kills an estimated 8 million possums a year in New Zealand.
The East Tamaki company that developed it, Feral R & D, is now working on new versions
of the poison to kill foxes, wild dogs and pigs in Australia, and foxes, wolves and cougars in Peru and Chile.
"They want us to make sample products and send them over," said managing director Jeremy Kerr.
The company claims a world-first - process for encapsulating cyanide in resin. The coating stops the poison from converting instantly to a gas.
One pea-sized poison pellet and pellets of non-toxic bait go into a paper bag to be hung on a tree.
Possums smell the bait, rip open the bag and die almost instantly when they bite into the cyanide pellet.
Cyanide gets inside the animal's cells and extracts oxygen from them, effectively starving the cells to death.
"They are on their back in 30 seconds, and dead in three or four minutes," Mr Kerr said.
The process, developed with Animal Health Board support and a $160,000 Technology NZ grant in 1997, cost more than $800,000 all up.
The poison is now made by another East Tamaki company, Connovation, a name taken from the words "conservation by innovation".
Mr Kerr said Feratox supplied about 40 per cent of the NZ possum poison market, dominating land-based poisoning. The controversial poison 1080 still dominates aerial poisoning.
Royal Forest and Bird Protection Society conservation director Kevin Hackwell said he was rapt at the worldwide interest in Feratox.
The society also supports continued use of 1080.
The Environmental Risk Management Authority says a review of 1080 is not likely to start this year.
Herald Feature: Conservation and Environment
Related links
