Cyanide left in containers worries farmers

Press, 4 December 1978, Page 2

Cyanide left in containers worries farmers

Nelson reporter The Marlborough Sounds! Maritime Park Board will' ask the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Maclntyre)' to tighten the law on the! issuing and disposal of tubes i of cyanide paste for: opossum poisoning. A board meeting at Homewood, Pelorus Sound,: was attended by a number! of farmers living in the area. They were given the opportunity to raise any subject over which the board had jurisdiction. Mr A. N. Foote, a farmer, produced a broken, empty cyanide paste tube (pictured), which still had some matter sticking to the inside. He said he had found this washed up on the beach and had also once found a part-empty tube. He was alarmed because opossum poisoners were working extensively in the Sounds: and the tubes could be! picked up by children. Mr P. W. Maplesden, 1 Conservator of Forests at: Nelson, said strict controls! were supposed to apply to! the issuing and disposal ofi the tubes of paste. Hej suggested that the tube! found by Mr Foote, and any; others found, should be taken to the police. Each: tube was numbered and could be traced. _ Members suggested that

before an opossum hunter could be issued with a ; i further supply of paste he I should be made" to surrender the old tubes. Mr Maplesden said that .this situation was not I peculiar to the Sounds. ' Recently, after a small fire lin bush at Westport, 20 ■ tubes of cyanide paste were ■ found lying in scrub about 3m off a track. Half of them ' were unused. Somebody had ! just thrown them away. “It ’ is quite alarming,” he said. When discussing the activities of some opossum '.hunters working outside /their own blocks, Mr , Maplesden said that if the ' service had evidence of this, j it would prosecute. i “But we have to have i evidence,” he said. “Under,/the Wild Animals Act, fines! rnow range up to $5OOO. If , we have evidence, we will /prosecute — but whoever! /has that evidence has to bej I prepared to go in the /witness-box and give it. We,< 'Shave 40 cases in the pipeline' jlnow.” >! It was decided to ask Mr|! i Maclntyre to take action on h ! the complaints by adopting, 1 : the procedure of issuing new ■ I tubes of paste only on the!! : surrender of the old tubes. : i The broken tube found bylMr Foote was later taken!] | back to Havelock and| ■handed to the police. <i