Date:  30 September 2016

DOC Director National Operations Martin Kessick says DOC has responded to concerns raised by Fish and Game earlier this month and asked MPI to assess the risk to trout consumers if trout ate 1080 baits.

"DOC takes any food safety risk very seriously, which is why we sought MPI's advice ahead of the fishing season."

"While the chance of catching a trout that has eaten a 1080 bait that may have fallen into water is considered minimal, MPI has advised that a waiting period of seven days to fish and eat trout from an area where there has been a 1080 operation would be prudent to mitigate any food safety concerns."

Martin Kessick says anglers can find details on the DOC website about planned and completed 1080 pest control operations.

As at the start of the fishing season tomorrow, there will have been no 1080 operations in the last week.

The next operations are planned to start after 3 October at the earliest, weather permitting. Operations in coming weeks will be in the Wangapeka valley (Kahurangi), Clinton and Eglinton valleys (Fiordland), Mokihinui (West Coast), Taranaki and Waipapa (central North Island).

DOC is about a third of the way through its Battle for our Birds programme to control rats, stoats and possums using aerial 1080 over about 820,000 hectares to protect our most vulnerable populations of native birds, bats and snails.

MPI report

The MPI report concludes:

"Based on consideration of the discussion points it is improbable that the exposure pathway model for 1080 in trout consuming baits would be duplicated in the environment. Any occurrence would expected to be a very rare event. Given the data on tissue depletion noted above a seven day cautionary period for consumption of trout after a 1080 baiting operation would be more than sufficient to mitigate any food safety concerns to trout consumers."

Advice for anglers - risk assessment of trout eating 1080 bait directly 2016 MPI website

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