F R FOSTER
Durie Hill
Ruminants, bombs and baits
Garth Scown (letters, October 25) claims ruminants have improved the pumice soil near Rotorua. I understood the pumice ash from the Taupo eruption was deficient in copper, cobalt, selenium and magnesium, and it was the addition of these minerals that has enabled sheep and cattle to graze there.
Anyone worried about William Partridge's tactical neutron bomb letter (also October 25) will be pleased to know the explosion was probably 100 tons or more of munitions stockpiled in a cave blowing up after a precision hit by a laser-guided missile.
Wikipedia tells us that neutron bombs are hydrogen bombs (which produce neutrons) without the usual heavy outer casing of uranium (which produces further fission energy when it absorbs the neutrons). Contrary to popular belief, low-altitude explosions of neutron bombs do produce radioactive particles that international monitors can pick up, but haven't.
Ted Charlton (October 27) claims that, as well as possums and rats, our native birds will eat the nice-tasting green 1080 baits, causing carnage.
Most native birds don't eat the nice-tasting green leaves and green berries but use their sharp eyesight to search for food that is red, yellow or moving.
Most of them hunt for food by sight, while forest mammals (and kiwi) hunt by smell, with the kiwi only eating grubs, not 2cm oatmeal pellets.
Could Ted explain how those 1080 baits will kill birds like kereru, tui, fantails, etc, that are not ground feeders? Also, why do his 99,000 co-believers have no concern about the carnage to birds caused by noxious mammals that 1080 is killing?
Finally, why is the Tongariro forest in front of me here nearly silent before a 1080 drop, but full of bird song two years later? All of us stupid majority of Chronicle readers eagerly await his cogent reply.
JOHN ARCHER
Ohakune
Motorists robbed
I write this letter in support of Clare Wishart of Marton (Chronicle, October 23) and to all my fellow motorists who are being robbed and pillaged by Queen Jacinda and her band of merry men and women.
Far too many average New Zealanders are forced to pay ever-increasing taxes on the price of fuel — both directly every time we put petrol in our cars, and indirectly every time we go shopping.
I wonder how many of us non-diesel-fuelled vehicle owners are aware of the $11 increase in road tax for every thousand kilometres driven that owners of diesel vehicles are forced to pay for the privilege of driving on what passes for roads in many parts of this country.
Need I point out that virtually everything we purchase from our supermarkets and every other shop we visit, as well as fuel, is delivered by diesel-fuelled trucks. Now, not only are the trucking companies who deliver these goods forced to pass on the rising cost of fuel to you and me, the consumers, but they must also add the increased cost of driving the kilometres it takes to get the goods to their destinations, which we all feel in our pockets.
This Government, before they were helped over the line by the man who didn't even win his own electorate seat, Winston Peters, promised they would not impose any new taxes in their first term in office. They are, however, compensating for this by steadily increasing taxes on the commodity this country is most reliant on to keep it moving.
I, for one, shudder to think what state we will be in should they win the next election and begin imposing new taxes, which I have little doubt are waiting in the wings.
ROD ANDERSON
Castlecliff
Send your letters to: The Editor, Whanganui Chronicle, 100 Guyton St, PO Box 433, Whanganui 4500; or email editor@wanganuichronicle.co.nz
