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Administrative Manual

7 Poison Use Statements

Landowner/Manager Poison Use Statements and Department of Conservation (DoC) Pesticide Summaries describe the poisons¹ used on land from which the animals were hunted and are provided by the certified supplier or certified game estate supplier to the primary processor.

Landowner/Manager Poison Use Statements describe any poisons used on privately owned land or crown land not covered by a DoC Pesticide Summary, and is completed by the owner or manager of the land being hunted. These statements are valid for only 30 days from the date of signing.

DoC Pesticide Summaries describe any poisons used on crown land, are published by Department of Conservation and are valid for 4 months (Pesticides Summaries cover the periods March to June, July to October and November to February). They are available from Department of Conservation offices and the Department of Conservation website using the key words “pesticide summary”.

The certified supplier or certified game estate supplier must provide the primary processor with completed poison use statement(s) which cover each area of land and period of time from which the animals have been taken.

Animals must not be procured within:

• 5 km for pigs;

• 2 km for deer;

• 1km for possums and hares; and

• 2km for any other species;

of the boundaries of neighbouring properties.

The exception to this is if the hunter has a current Landowner/Manager Poison Use Statement or DoC Pesticide Summary for the neighbouring property and the poison use status (including buffer zones and caution periods for any poisons used) is such that the area can be hunted. In the case of game estates where animals are fully confined within the boundaries of the game estate, the requirement to provide poison use statements for neighbouring properties does not apply, and the animals can be procured up to the boundary of the game estate.

The statements may be provided to the primary processor when submitting the carcasses or live possums for primary processing, or at any other time provided the primary processor has the current poison use statement(s) when processing that animal.

The current buffer zones, caution periods and the names and types of the commonly used poisons are stated on the Landowner/Manager Poison Use Statement.

The buffer zone is the distance between the boundaries of an area of land that is currently poisoned to the point where it is acceptable for animals to be hunted.

For example, if brodifacoum (e.g. talon) has been applied to land, a certified supplier or a certified game estate supplier must not hunt pigs within 5km of the boundaries of the poisoned land.

The caution period is the amount of time between when poison is used on the land to when that land is acceptable for hunting.

For example, if pindone has been applied to an area of land, a certified supplier or a certified game estate supplier must wait for 2 months from the time of application of the poison, before hunting animals on that land. If 1080 has been used, 2 months and 100mm of rain or 4 months needs to have elapsed before a certified supplier or a certified game estate supplier can hunt animals on that land.

A link to the Landowner/Manager Poison Use Statement is given in Appendix 3.

¹ Poisons means vertebrate toxic agents