Hi my name is Tim Mullany Manager of West Coast Wildlife Park and this article is to explain my experiences and my thought on 1080 baiting in our Australian outback!

To talk to most people I have found that not a lot of people are not aware that 1080 baiting is still happening in Australia and even more so the fact that it is used more often and in larger proportions right here in western Australia than anywhere else.

1080 is believed to be a poison that has no secondary effects on other animals, but more recent research says that 1080 has serious secondary effects, and can affect many animals with just one bait!  The effects of 1080 baiting  can differ between animal species but in all cases is quite a painful and slow death!

In my personal experiences with 1080 we had a situation where we had placed 1080 on a private property to bait some foxes that were killing livestock. Two days later we found a kangaroo, and although there where no noticeable physical affects to the  roo it appeared to be boxing a tree! After watching this roo for a few minutes, it was hitting this tree so hard that its arms and knuckles started to bleed. It then started foaming at the mouth and straight away I knew that it was 1080 poisoning. We then knew that the safest and kindest thing to do for this animal was to put it down but the way we would have had to shoot would have been towards someone house so I approached the kangaroo to try to get it to move so we could do the right thing for it! When I approached it, it went out of control and started trying to attack me and everything around it, even attacking the tree again that it was attacking in the first place. We finally got a clear shot and put the roo out of his misery!

It got me thinking of how this roo got poisoned! The 1080 was on meat and kangaroos don’t eat meat! Then I spotted it, another kangaroo near the body of the dead fox. This kangaroo appeared to be eating the vomit of the fox as when the fox is poisoned like all animals and humans the body rejects it and you start to vomit. These kangaroos not knowing, where eating the vomit of the fox and there for getting poisoned as well.

I have also had experiences of wedgetailed eagles getting poisoned after eating an animal that has been poisoned by 1080.

My question is how do they control which animals get the 1080? Is it a case of pot luck and bad luck if the wrong animal gets it? We have many carnivores animals that if they where to find a free feed of meat, which is usually where 1080 is put, would take that opportunity to eat and there for would be poisoned. Its fact even some of our native Australian wildlife is affected including endangered species such as dingoes and quolls!  

Just as crocodiles are the apex predators of the water, dingoes are the apex predator of the land and wedgetailed eagles are the apex predator of the air! If we wipe these animals out the whole eco system is going to be out of balance as they are the top of the food chain!

The effects of 1080 are permanent! Once an animal is extinct it is permanent!

Before its too late, lets stand against 1080 baiting, and help conserve our Australian wildlife so that our children, our children’s children and so on, will be able to enjoy wildlife the way we have! 

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