Monitoring indicates no trace of poison in lake
Archived content: This media release was accurate on the date of publication.
Introduction
Water quality monitoring results released to the Department of Conservation have shown no trace of the rat poison which fell into a large lake on Anchor Island in Fiordland eleven days ago.Date: 16 July 2010
Water quality monitoring results released last Friday to the Department of Conservation (DOC) have shown no trace of the rat poison which fell into a large lake on Anchor Island in Fiordland.
DOC Area Manager Reg Kemper said that seventeen samples of water from the lake had been sent to Landcare Research New Zealand limited. Testing by Landcare experts showed that rat poison was unable to be detected in any of the water samples.
“The results weren’t unexpected given the large volume of water in the lake and the fact that the bait only contained 0.02% poison,” said Mr Kemper. “However, monitoring and water quality testing will continue for several months”.
A storage pod containing about 700 kilograms of cereal bait pellets laced with rat poison was lost in flight on June 24th releasing the cereal bait into the large freshwater lake on Anchor Island.
Contact
Investigation into Fiordland rat bait incident 25 June 2010
Contact:
Reg Kemper
Te Anau Area Manager
+61 3 249 0227 or +61 27 248 5860
rkemper@doc.govt.nz