Julia Graham's rambling diatribe (letters 29/7) in reaction to my letter about the PCE 1080 report (22/7), and NZ Govt contempt for citizens and the environment with its attempts to perpetuate their $100+ million per year poison industry and absolve themselves of liability, requires a response.

Sadly, Julia lowers herself to making personal insults, and tries to vilify hunters and trappers in general, who are not the only people opposed to 1080 poison in NZ.

Let's be clear: being anti-1080 does not mean being anti-conservation – far from it. There is real concern that long-term poison use is killing our forests, not saving them. Aerial 1080 use actually creates rat plagues! It is also culturally offensive to many Maori.

When I stated 'wild food sources” I referred not only to game animals, but watercress, puha and piko piko, which tests have shown to uptake 1080 poison. Other tests show eel (touna) to retain 1080 from eating baits or poisoned carcases.

'Contamination of waterways” referred to baits in streams, but mainly the decaying poisoned carcases which often end up in waterways and water tanks, and are a source of cryptosporidium and other bacteria, as well as residual poison. I have photos of koura killed/poisoned by 1080 at the Tongariro tarns. 1080 will kill anything that ingests enough of it – including invertebrates.

Julia accuses me of ‘ignorance', but embarrassingly she shows her own by simply parroting the usual BS statements from the ‘1080 for dummies' alliance sources.

I respect Julia's passion as she tries to fiercely defend the industry ‘spin' she has been fooled into believing, but I stand behind my original letter, including the closing statement.

Dean Maisey, Tauranga.