Seventeen of the vets reported animals poisoned with 1080.
Total deaths reported: Dogs 65, cats 3, cattle 2.
One must also bear in mind at least four things:
1) There is far more 1080 poison dropped over New Zealand every year now than there was in the mid-'90s.
2) Also, many dogs will never get to vets — either their owners know what has happened and put them out of their misery, or the dogs race off into the bush to die, or they just disappear, never to be seen again.
4) An autopsy is expensive — around $1000.
3) 125 is only approximately 10 per cent of the total number of vets in NZ, and in any case less than half of those surveyed actually responded.
This has been going on for over 60 years now, so you can see that is one reason a blanket ban is called for. That's without the stock deaths every year as well. Two months ago there were eight cattle beasts poisoned and the three stillborn calves as well.
Also 31 people have been poisoned by 1080, but those are only the provable ones.
MERV SMITH
Bulls
Recycling costs
Propaganda has begun.
Councillor Bennett's letter (13/11/2018) on behalf of the Mayor said it all and confirmed everyone's suspicions.
Red (stop) option A has four advantages.
Amber (steady/ready) option B has five advantages.
Green (go) option C has six advantages.
So tick the one with the most advantages sounds like more value for your buck.
But "we have not yet made a decision", yeah, right.
Rateable properties at 21,423; survey forms dispatched from the ivory tower at 18,000. Bit of a mismatch there.
Maybe why some people reported not receiving said survey?
At due date for return, only 3000 survey forms returned/found, maybe they are the ones that never left the building. Smells a bit like Florida.
Reported cost of the survey, $10,000, sounds a little bit on the low side, considering today's cost to post a letter one way locally is $1.20. Add to that the cost of printing the survey coloured papers/form, putting folded forms into envelopes and contract costs for consultants' brains behind the concept/format.
Cost could be closer to $80,000-$90,000: just a wild guess.
Extra propaganda: Councillor Craig's front page spread (November 15) affirming that Whanganui needs to better deal with waste and illegal dumping, to somehow win a beauty award.
She used the new liberal word "holistic" in relation to the rates-funded kerbside pickup, and in the same breath said the council should try an extra rate-funded pickup for organic matter.
Her final comments: "It's the environment or our back pockets" and "You don't have to be well off to pull a few weeds".
But the WDC ratepayers' comment goes like this: "If the WDC continuously keeps ripping a hole in our back pockets, eventually we will not be well enough off to afford the future WDC rate demands".
A question for the mayor. With this extra $4.6 million going into the WDC coffers, do we all get gold-plated wheelie bins?
F. LAW
Springvale
Re-enter mine now
Great to hear the news on Pike River, but why don't they go in now and give the families the Christmas present they have been waiting for for eight years?
Just do it, Andrew. Why wait? Do it for Bernie and his extended family now.
GARY STEWART
Foxton Beach
Send your letters to: The Editor, Whanganui Chronicle, 100 Guyton St, PO Box 433, Whanganui 4500; or email editor@wanganuichronicle.co.nz
