Dean Jacqui: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to MinistersText is incorporated into the Bound VolumeDean Jacqui: Questions for Oral Answer — Questions to Ministers[Sitting date: 30 January 2014. Volume:696;Page:15702. Text is incorporated into the Bound Volume.]9.JACQUI DEAN (National—Waitaki) to theMinister of Conservation: What advice has he received about the impacts of pests on our native birds particularly Kiwi and how will a beech mast this year affect these birds’ survival?Hon Dr NICK SMITH (Minister of Conservation): I am advised by the Department of Conservation and by Landcare Research ecologists that rats stoats and possums kill 25 million native birds a year. That is like having aRena disaster which killed 2000 every hour. I am further advised that pests are reducing our kiwi numbers by 3 percent each year and that kiwis will not exist in the wild for our grandchildren without additional pest control. This year’sbeechmast makes it even more urgent that we address this problem. It occurs about once every 15 years and will result this autumn in the dropping of about 1 million tonnes of seed which will then spark a plague of 30 million rats and about a further 50000 stoats. The problem will be in spring when the beech seeds germinate and the rats and stoats turn on our native birds. The last case when we had a widespread mast was in 2000 and that led to themohua which is on our $100 note disappearing from the Marlborough Sounds.Jacqui Dean: How many hectares of conservation land are covered by the Battle for Our Birds programme and how does this compare with historic levels of pest control?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: This programme provides for an additional 500000 hectares of extra pest control this year as well as ramping up our year-on-year pest control by 50000 hectares per year for each of the next 5 years. Last year the Department of Conservation did 150000 hectares; that has been about the same for the last decade. This year the Department of Conservation will do 700000 hectares. On top of thisTBfree New Zealand does about 300000 hectares per year meaning that this year we will do about 1 million hectares. Another way to put this is that we are moving from 5 percent of public conservation land having protection for native species from rats stoats and possums and lifting that from 5 percent to 12 percent.Jacqui Dean: What are the improvements in 1080 that have enabled the department to reduce poisoned bait application rates from 30 kilograms per hectare to 1 kilogram per hectare?Hon Dr NICK SMITH: Firstly there has been the technology around the pre-feeding ofunpoisoned bait which has meant that the amount of poison that is being used has been able to be very significantly reduced. Secondly the use of helicopters with GPS rather than fixed-wing aircrafts means that we are able to be far more accurate with the distribution. There have also been big improvements in the quality of the bait ensuring that there are no crumbs or fragments that could add to by-kill of birds and in the use of different types of baits. So even though we are more than doubling the area of coverage for 1080 use this programme does not involve record use of 1080.