Letters to the editor: Consider carefully before you tick

Give some thought before you make your choice, says a reader. Photo / File

If you happen to be a retiree like me, these wet days seem a little like lockdown revisited.

The rain keeps one out of the garden, grass is growing unchecked and unthreatened by the recently serviced mower.

But I just read an opinion column extolling the amazing job our Government has done in controlling/eliminating Covid-19.

Certainly, we have been blessed by seemingly cool heads in the midst of a global crisis but we also need to recognise that we are an isolated island nation with a smallish population and only a few densely populated areas, which makes the task much easier than say Europe's large, dense urban population centres, mixed races, languages, and cultures all adding to the complexity of the task faced by their health services.

There is, however, a dark side to this trumpeting of success by our leadership.

Immediately before lockdown the world's most liberal abortion law was rushed through Parliament and we're now asked to decide the next steps on two evil referenda on the electoral table.

Folks, I urge you, consider carefully before you tick.

John Williams
Rotorua

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I've seen it with my own eyes, animal carcases rotting in the waterways – even the flies won't lay eggs on them.

Yes, we are talking about the poison the Department of Conservation uses – 1080. It's the poison others in the world won't use.

As a possum trapper, I have to have my traps all checked and cleared by 10am every day for humane reasons.

But 1080 and other poisons take days for animals to die. Not very humane. In my view, it seems there are rules for some but not others.

I find it hard to believe 1080 kills stoats and ferrets as DoC claims because they like fresh meat, not meat that even flies won't lay eggs on.

There are companies out there who have bent over backwards, jumped through hoops and scratched through miles of paperwork to be able to process wild game - making the country millions of dollars, not spending taxpayers' money.

A DoC worker once told me 1080 kills 70 per cent of all birdlife but with the pests gone they say they will breed at a faster rate.

One female rat can produce up to 90 offspring in its yearly cycle, birds are lucky if they produce two offspring in a year.

1080 is a very lazy way. (Abridged)

John Campbell
Katikati

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