Wrong underdog

OPINION: Stoats are God's little creatures; albeit uncommonly ardent when it comes to ripping apart an awful lot of God's other little creatures, writes The Southland Times in an editorial.

Their presence in New Zealand can be attributed to one of those dunderheaded decisions our colonial forefathers made. The Government in the 1880s smiled upon the introduction of stoats, weasels and ferrets to counter the rabbit problem. This proved to be akin to fighting fire with petrol.

Disappointingly, the immigrant mustelids left the rabbit population scarcely troubled and found much more agreeable dining on the land's ground-nesting, slow-moving, pretty much defensive native birds, whose populations they have assiduously ravaged.

They have no place in the wilds of this country. It really is that simple.

So it is perplexing, if not downright astounding, that they now appear to have a champion or two in the south. Someone, or perhaps a group, has been stealing and vandalising southern traps.

At least in the latest case, 15 traps taken from the South Coast Track in Western Southland have been recovered from thick bush along a 3km stretch of the trap. At least 50 traps on the track have been repeatedly interfered with. Bluff Hill has also drawn unwanted attention, as has the Rob Roy Track in Mount Aspiring National Park, Wanaka.

It becomes difficult to discuss the possible motivation for this campaign, as it appears to be, without sounding facetious about the reasoning behind it. Surely they don't see themselves as avian anarchists who want the land scoured free of kiwi, fantails, kaka, robins, yellowheads and moreporks, let alone takahe and kakapo.

Nor, surely, would they be engaged in some sort of infantile environmental activism, in their minds' eye adorning stoats in Beatrix Potterish little coats and pantaloons. For heaven's sake, if we're going to get anthropomorphically sentimental about these critters then at least let's get the sides right. Even Kenneth Grahame's dear old The Wind in the Willows stories turned to mustelids to supply the villains' role, as Mole, Toad and Ratty could attest.

Some Scarlet Pimpernel types, then, who want the stoat to roam free as nature intended (albeit not in New Zealand)? No? Seriously, then, what is this all about?

Some spray-painted slogans have led to suggestions that what we have here is the work of anti-1080 activists. The ever-so-slight problem with this view is that, as a group, the actual activists who so fervently oppose aerial poisoning are also given to upholding trapping as among the most effective and tolerable alternatives. It is still possible that this is a case of a rogue cell unhelpfully weighing in on a "with friends like these" basis. For their part, the open-about-it 1080 opponents are entitled to be suspicious that they're being clumsily set up. It's all giddily implausible, to be sure, but then the same can surely be said for whatever the actual reason is.

There are now a brace of good reasons for the wider community to want the trap thief or thieves to be caught. One is to put an end to this damaging campaign and impose a measured penalty. The other – and this shouldn't be equally appealing, but it just is – would be that we could then find out from the horse's mouth (if the metaphor doesn't point us to the wrong end of the horse) exactly what the rationale was. Then we can all have a good laugh.

- © Fairfax NZ News

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