Since 2014, Victorian governments have been routinely dropping tonnes of cruel 1080 poison over vast areas of the Victorian natural environment from helicopters. Supposedly to protect farm stock from ‘wild dogs’, it is of virtually no benefit to farmers and nothing to do with ‘wild dogs’.
The ‘wild dogs’ being killed are really Dingoes, the native Australian apex predator, essential to the stability and health of Victorian ecosystems and listed as a threatened species under the Flora and Fauna Guarantee Act (Vic).
On 31 December 2019, the Victorian government’s permission from the federal government to aerial bait with 1080 poison will expire.
The Andrews Labor government must not seek renewed federal permission to continue this cruel and unnecessary assault upon Dingoes and Victorian ecosystems. Plans are to renew for 5 more years and to increase baiting in fourfold areas. For too long, our native apex predator, the Dingo, has been persecuted because of a grubby association between extremist elements within the farming lobby, big business poison producers, and politicised government bureaucracies.
This persecution has involved the deliberate mis-characterisation of Dingoes as ‘wild dogs’, avoiding public scrutiny and potentially misleading government ministers. Even the Victorian environment bureaucracy appears to have submitted to and defended this institutionalised propaganda.
On 6 October 2019, 26 prominent scientists, including some of the most respected, senior environmental scientists in Australia wrote a joint open letter to the Victorian Minister for the Environment calling for the discontinuation of aerial baiting with 1080 poison.
It is time to ask, ‘who governs the Victorian natural environment?’ People like you, through elected, well informed governments, and adequately briefed ministers, or farming and poison industry lobbyists, who now exert a concerningly disproportionate degree of influence within government departments.
1080 Poison is a cruel poison and anecdotally responsible for the deaths of thousands of domestic dogs across Australia each year as well as the Victorian threatened species the Dingo and other native wildlife and directly and indirectly the threatened species the Spot tailed quoll.
We invite young and old to join us at the Peaceful Rally to show opposition to the renewal of poison 1080 aerial baiting and to participate in this unique and moving peaceful event and experience the silent lighting to flute of Jorge Pujol’s Dingo Art “Save the Dingo” at dusk.
More Photos available from “Stop the Drop” facebook page.
