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A possum poisoning campaign in Kapiti has revived the bush and birdlife and saved a deer herd from tuberculosis

ACTION MAN: Errol Croad on his Otaki farm. When his deer were infected with TB, he took out his frustration on the local possum population.

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When the kowhai trees flower, Otaki deer farmers Errol and Adele Croad have to take cover from low-flying feathered missiles.

"It gets dangerous around here," Mr Croad says. "Don't put yourself between a wood pigeon and its food. It has its sights on one thing and you'll come off second-best."

The fat native pigeons are joined by big flocks of tui and bellbirds in descending on the Croads' garden from the nearby Tararua forest park in search of food and shelter.

The birdsong is disturbingly raucous. "When you're going to bed they're all saying goodnight and a half-hour before dawn they're waking up and saying good morning," Mrs Croad says. "They can be pretty exasperating, but then, it's a great complaint to have."

They have been farming on the slopes of the Tararua Range behind Otaki for 30 years but the birdlife has only appeared in such numbers in recent years. Before, Mr Croad says they were lucky to see two tui a year and only the occasional wood pigeon at the house.

He traces the change to the rejuvenation of the park's native bush after an intensive possum-killing campaign. Their big home garden has also bloomed, with many trees that had never flowered before now laying down a colourful carpet of fallen petals and putting on growth spurts that have transformed the scenery.

The reason for the possum cull was a tuberculosis outbreak in his deer herd. It changed Mr Croad's life, leading him into the murky world of agriculture politics and to an important role in the battle to rid New Zealand of the animal disease.

In 1994, he was a well-established deer farmer, the survivor of two early shocks to hit the young industry, when his deer began reacting to regular Tb tests. However, no signs of Tb were found at the processing plant and it wasn't till he killed an underweight hind for dog tucker that he noticed something wrong. He called the vet. "He said, 'This is Tb'. I said, 'No way'," Mr Croad recalls.

More than a decade later, the memory of that day is still raw. "It is the worst that can happen," he says quietly. "It knocks you financially and emotionally and leaves you questioning your abilities as a farmer."

The Agriculture and Forestry Ministry placed the farm on movement control, which stopped all sales of live animals. He was restricted to what he could earn from sending his stock to slaughter, but venison prices were at the bottom of one of their regular cycles. It was four years before he could farm normally again – after the herd showed two clear tests – and he puts his losses at $50,000.

Officialdom dealt with the immediate problem and left the couple to face the consequences alone.

Mr Croad, who later traced the outbreak through neighbouring farms bordering the forest park and then back to a coastal dairy farm, imposed a strict culling regime on his herd and took out his frustrations on the local possum population. He backpacked phosphorous poison into the bush and laid bait. The kill was up to 100 possums a night but on his own it was not enough.

He asked the Animal Health Board – the body set up to fight Tb in farm stock – for help, but his part of the forest park was not in its plans. Mr Croad set about changing that, calling a meeting of representatives of MAF, the Conservation Department and the Wellington Regional Animal Health Committee. At first, they helped with his poisoning campaign but after a year realised more drastic action was needed. An airdrop of 1080 poison was called for.

This put Mr Croad in a quandary. As a longtime deer hunter he supported the Deerstalkers Association's belief that 1080 was unacceptable; that it killed not only possums but all bird and animal life. But he wanted the possums and ferrets – carriers of the Tb that had devastated his and his neighbours' farms – gone.

He was pleasantly surprised at the result. "It was the best thing that could have happened," he says. "It zeroed the possums and killed all the ferrets and wild cats. The bush regrowth has been amazing and the bird life has exploded."

He is now a firm supporter of 1080. There's been another air drop on the park and his pine plantations and he uses it elsewhere, ground-baiting his bush gullies and in bait stations on his 4km park border.

He has lost patience with the anti- 1080 lobby, which he says has captured the news media. "They talk about 1080 causing a 'silent bush', but it's just the opposite."

The result of a 10-year campaign run by the Animal Health Board in greater Wellington has seen a massive drop in Tb-infected farm animals. When it began, 21 deer herds and 312 cattle herds were on movement control. Now, no deer herds and just nine cattle herds are restricted. "It was one of the worst regions in New Zealand and now it is a prime example of what can be done across the whole country," he says.

Stirred into action over his own problems, Mr Croad became active in his Horowhenua-Wellington branch of the Deer Farmers Association. He became chairman, attended national meetings and conferences and was elected on to the association's national council. When the industry went through the upheaval of reform in 2001-02 he was actively involved as a councillor and then became chairman of the association's executive committee.

At the same time, he became a member of the Animal Health Board's representatives committee, the body that appoints members of the board and oversees its $80 million budget. He has just retired after three years as chairman of the committee with the resolution of a long debate that saw a radical change in the way the $55 million of funding contributions are divided between the industries, farmers and local and central government.

He believes New Zealand is on track to meet its target of reducing numbers of Tb-infected deer and cattle to 0.2 per cent of national herds by June 2013. "The feeling is that this is as close as we can get to not having Tb at all, but I don't see why we can't make the extra effort and eliminate it altogether," he says. Crucial to this is funding, and he urges the providers to remain committed.

On the farm, it is five years since he had a deer react to Tb tests but if a fullblown outbreak was to occur he knows what he would do. "I would kill the lot and get out of deer farming. I refuse to go through that all over again."

Deer farmers have to have good stock skills to be successful, he says. "If you can't understand deer you will have nothing but crisis."

Deer are naturally nervous and have to be treated with caution. A typical example is a gateway in the middle of a fence line. "You can make sheep and cattle go through that gate on sheer dog power, but if deer don't want to there's nothing you can do about it. You will run out of dogs long before you counter all their options."

He has learnt over the years and culled heavily on temperament to get less edgy deer to work with but still has his bad days. "I've come down off the hills with three dogs and we've all got our tails between our legs – and the deer are still up there."

After more than 30 years Mr Croad sold his velvet herd and is going out of breeding. He will use Elk- Wapiti sires over bought-in Red hinds and sell all progeny at 100kg. "It's simple and easy – life's about going fishing," he says.

- © Fairfax NZ News