A charitable trust is 'extremely annoyed' an old photo of dead kiwi is being repurposed by anti-1080 campaigners.
In 2016, the Bay Bush Action Group posted an image on its Facebook page of around 50 dead kiwi that were killed in the Kerikeri region by dogs and cars.
The image has recently been used by other individuals and groups claiming the birds were killed by the pesticide 1080.
A post on the Facebook group "1080 Eyewitness Open" on Saturday which claimed the birds were poisoned by 1080 got more than 1000 shares before being deleted.
The original post prompted a strong response from the Bay Bush Action Group.
"We are extremely annoyed to find that an anti 1080 group is using a photo given to us, to mislead the New Zealand public that 1080 killed these Kiwi. 1080 did NOT kill these birds," the group says.
The kiwi were collected by Department of Conservation (DoC) workers over a period of three years.
Without predator control targeting rats, possums, stoats, ferrets, weasels and feral cats, nine out of every 10 kiwi chicks born in the wild die before reaching one year, the Bay Bush Action group claims.
Of 280 kiwi monitored through 1080 operations in the Tongariro Forest Park from 2007 to 2011, none were lost to 1080 and chick survival was more than twice as high as before the operation, the group says.
Newshub.
