Photo: Jean Stanley of Pukawa, Lake Taupo, and Professor Charles Daugherty, 2013
Here’s a scene worthy of Breaking Bad for gory invention.
We – my parents, great Uncle Charlie and I – arrived late at my grandparents’ farmhouse, which was uninhabited following their deaths. We knew what the scratching and scrabbling in the dark cupboard beside the fireplace meant. My father, always the decisive action man, opened the cupboard a fraction – three mice immediately poked their heads through the gap, in vertical symmetry. Slam! The blood ran black in the dim light.
Many years later, we arrived to find that rats had eaten the couches, a third of the curtains, the wallpaper and even the hard plastic knobs on the stove. They had nested in my bed, raised a family, urinated frequently, and snacked on a fair portion of the sheet. Can’t be easy to swallow flannelette sheeting.
We heard but rarely saw the possums. The corrugated iron roof graunched under their weight. They hissed outside our bedrooms and defecated on the verandah. Occasionally we would surprise them in the outside toilet and terrify them with our screams. One Christmas Eve, a possum fell through the ceiling into the hallway just as the pillowslips full of presents were being quietly laid at the end of the children’s beds. Feminism had not changed the convention that men must deal with these things, while women hide under the bedcovers.
Yet New Zealand women are to the fore in the 21st century drive to eradicate predators – setting and clearing traps with all the booted, bush-whacking physicality of Canadian fur trappers in The Revenant. At Pukawa, Lake Taupo, I met eighty-something Jean Stanley who had formed and led a community army of trap-setters with the hand on hip command of a Nancy Wake (called the White Mouse because of her ability to avoid capture). I stop and pay homage to Nancy on my walks around Oriental Parade, where she was born. Residents have put up a memorial and information board about her. Nancy led a 7000-strong resistance force in the forests of Auvergne (give her a job!), rode for 71 hours almost non stop on an old bike to deliver replacement radio codes to a wireless operator, stormed Gestapo headquarters, killed a man with her bare hands, and executed a suspected informer without a moment’s hesitation. Her French husband was arrested and beaten to a slow and agonising death by the Gestapo. He had refused to tell them Nancy’s whereabouts. She was no. 1 on their wanted list.
I was in the audience for Sir Paul Callaghan’s last lecture on 13 February 2012, six weeks before his death, when he sent up the war cry against our native bird-destroying predators. He was so ill he had to sit for the second half of the talk . Professor Charles Daugherty, introduced in the last blog-post, was standing by with his speech-notes, in case Paul could not continue. I remember being aware of people sitting up and moving forward in their seats when Paul proposed a “crazy”, but not impossible, mission to get rid of our 25 million possums, anybody’s guess rat population, and stoats – those long-bodied terrors that eat nests of baby birds, head first.
Charles has played the lead role ever since. I have lost count of the interviews, articles and seminars, meetings, conferences, and panel discussions I have attended in his wake. Charles became a Trustee of Predator Free NZ that was formed after Paul died, as well as Zero Invasive Predators (ZIP).
Four and a half years later: Horizons Regional Council has got rid of the possums on our farm, and we buy rat poison in 5kg buckets. I still automatically check the outside toilet carefully. Old habits. I do communications work for New Zealand’s Biological Heritage National Science Challenge to reverse the decline of our biodiversity. I must say, until Paul’s lecture, I had never thought of pest eradication as a future career move.
At the farmhouse…hoodie designed by Mark Hunter, a former student of Paul’s, for the Cancer Society’s Run for Life.
The government, emboldened by the public groundswell of support and degree of private investment, has declared that New Zealand will be free of possums, rats and stoats by 2050 – allocating $28 million to be matched 2:1 by private funders.
Last week our capital city Wellington announced its intention to become predator free asap and the Taranaki Mounga Project was launched – if it succeeds, Mt Taranaki (Mt Egmont) will be our first predator free National Park. Much of this bold restoration envisioning is funded by a modest couple who made a fortune from a commercial linen business, and a hard-headed economist and his son, who sold their on-line trading website for three quarters of a billion dollars.
The economist stuck his neck out on the issue of cats as predators, and is hated by many for it. He has his admirers among the ecologists, however. New Zealanders own more cats per capita than any other country (1.8 per household), and there are c2.5 million feral cats out there somewhere. We see families of them at the farm from time to time.
What few New Zealanders realise is the economic burden of Toxoplasmosis, transmitted by cat faeces. It costs farmers thousands a year to medicate sheep against this persistent parasite, which causes them to abort. A young woman I know contracted it and is still disabled by fatigue after 15 months. She had just started her first big job after graduating. That’s not just about economics.
Ecologically, we’re in a mess. We’ve got so many introduced animals and plants that have gone predictably out of control in this defenceless wilderness. Just as we rejoice in getting rid of possums at the farm, we notice the rabbits returning and burrows everywhere. Twenty years ago, out of desperation and in true New Zealand DIY style, a group of farmers jumped the science and put Calicivirus-infected organs, illegally imported from Australia, in the kitchen blender and scattered the bloody pulp around the countryside. The disease whittled the population down to a resistant few that then bred like… well, rabbits!
The new genetic technologies, such as the amazing CRISPR/Cas9 where you can cut and paste bits of DNA, offer very real hope that we can get rid of pests without poison, pain or unwanted side effects – and without the heavy physical labour involved in trapping. We just haven’t got the population to get on top of it and sustain a nationwide effort. Pests outnumber us by at least 20:1. The Cabinet is putting its faith in science and technology. So do I. While we’re waiting for miracles, Jean and co will have to keep holding the line.
Postscript Two days ago Radio New Zealand (RNZ National) reported that Department of Conservation staff have received death threats following an aerial drop of 1080 poison to kill possums, rats and stoats. This poison is the only defence New Zealand has in our large tracts of steep, inaccessible country (see Lord of the Rings). Apart from their predation of native birds and destruction of bush, possums carry bovine TB, which is a significant threat to our dairy and beef industries. See the report on the investigation into the use of 1080 by New Zealand’s independent Commissioner for the Environment, Dr Jan Wright. She supports its use and is no doubt tired of saying so.
Jean Stanley and Charles Daugherty, 2013
http://www.naturespace.org.nz/groups/pukawa-wildlife-management-trust
http://www.nzedge.com/legends/warriors/nancy-wake/
http://www.radionz.co.nz/national/programmes/saturday/audio/201818326/al-bramley-predator-control
