In Conclusion

I wanted to wrap it up with a bit of general discussion around some of the issues and then consider the question of where to from here.

Throughout this series you may have noticed that I have pretty much avoided mentioning the elephant in the room, that being the subject of 1080. I’ve done that on purpose. I am sure you will all agree with me that there are few more emotionally loaded topics than 1080, and this is particularly the case within the hunting culture. I can understand why. What I have wanted to do was discuss the issues around our big game animals and then talk about conservation and some of the challenges with introduced pests, without it being hijacked by the pro- and anti-1080 war. There is enough of that on the internet forums etc and to be frank, I can’t be bothered getting involved in it. So let’s leave it at that. What I do want to do is have a quick chat about what is the bigger issue of what we do to help protect our biodiversity in New Zealand. The first thing we need to consider is what is actually happening. There is a lot of science out there that can tell us the gory