Greg Blunden hates pests and he enjoys killing them.
The convenor of the New Zealand Kiwi Foundation Charitable Trust and manager of Aroha Island Ecological Centre near Kerikeri has a vision to kill every pest in Northland with a poisoning and trapping blitz covering every square metre of land in the region.
Feral cats, unregistered dogs, rats, weasels, stoats, ferrets, goats, possums - "all mammal pests, kill the lot in one hit," he says.
His idea may be met with scepticism by many, but he is deadly serious. Mr Blunden is a lover of native birds, the bush and the environment. He owns his own remote Northland bush block, with no buildings, where he and wife Gay go to enjoy the peace and quiet and listen to the birds.
He firmly believes a sustained poisoning and trapping campaign over several years, from Cape Reinga to the Auckland Harbour Bridge, would effectively rid the region of pests, allowing all wildlife and the bush to flourish.
Land Care groups, the Department of Conservation and local councils were all doing their bit to eradicate pests at present. But Mr Blunden wants a "private enterprise model" to run a pest eradication campaign that would see all resources pooled including those of the Auckland Regional Council.
"They start at the Harbour Bridge and we start at Cape Reinga and we meet in the middle. It would take several years to trap and poison every square metre of land," he said.
Northland Regional Council biosecurity operations manager Carl Cooper said Mr Blunden's idea was "brilliant ... but boy, there's some logistics involved".
The NRC is itself coming to the end of a 12-year cycle this Christmas where it would have trapped and poisoned on about 95 percent of rateable land in the region. However, some land owners had refused to let the NRC onto their land to kill pests while others did not follow up the NRC's visit by keeping the numbers of pests down themselves, he said.
"All of these programmes are great as long as you are getting people taking responsibility behind you."
Though supportive of the idea, Mr Cooper said the chances of getting all land owners to agree to Mr Blunden's plan was minimal, the cost would be massive and the chances of wiping out every pest was also minimal. There was also nothing stopping people from bringing feral cats and other pests back into the region when it was all over.
Mr Cooper would like to see peninsulas in Northland targeted to become pest-free areas and the net spread from there.
The Department of Conservation does pest control on its own land but Northland's conservator Chris Jenkins was unavailable for comment yesterday.
Mr Blunden said one massive eradication programme would save money and the environment from further harm.
"We can carry on spending this money on poisons forever which is a stupid idea or we can wipe them out in one hit. Every single year we are putting more poisons into the environment whereas this way we poison the region just once."
The only pests to be spared by Mr Blunden would be pigs. "Pig hunting is an important part of the Northland culture."
Pest eradication vision covers all Northland
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