There is a simple reason that 21^st century New Zealand has so much difficulty eradicating its unwanted species.

It is because the instant that our Government initiates the execution of a pest-eradication programme, invariably there is a team of meddling eco-warriors to step forward and interrupt that process.

As a result, for example, no planned distribution of 1080 poison in recent history has ever been carried out to completion; as a result of this, the effects of every 1080 poison drop in recent history are never as complete as they could or indeed, as they would, be, if the process were allowed to run its recommended prolonged course, thus render a full species extermination.

According to ecologists, “…But 1080 is immediately devastating to birds and other native forest wildlife.”

According to me, “…Rats, stoats, possums, and other introduced forest vermin are devastating to wildlife too, only the effects of these pests are not just ‘immediate’, they’re ongoing.”

The projected possum population in New Zealand’s North Island numbers as many as 25 animals per hectare, across favourable conditions such as scrub gullies bordering farmland, and those numbers tend to be more prone to inflation than reduction.

Yet unlike America’s native opossum, which can regularly give birth to veritable litters of young, Australia’s (New Zealand’s) native possum generally only reproduces once every annum, and usually only gives birth to one, and typically no more than two, baby possums.

According to ecologists, “…But look at the amount of native wildlife 1080 harms versus the amount of pests it actually kills – the benefits of 1080 just don’t add up.”

According to me: “…Let DOC distribute the poison over the required area, at the required intervals, and at the required dosage, then rather than becoming immediately hysterical about ‘preservation of your beloved native forests’ and staging elaborate protests thereby curtailing that particular 1080 poison drop, give the poison a chance to do its job – it won’t totally kill off any wildlife but given time it will totally kill off the vermin destroying your forest, and better yet 1080 only needs to render an unwanted animal extinct once to chalk up its win.”

Unlike other vermin such as rabbits or mice, our possums are decidedly not prolific breeders, yet somehow these hideous rodents are still considered one of New Zealand’s most destructive, hence costly, pests.

Our nation has spent well over $100 million dollars in recent years in the hope of eradicating possums, yet those possums are still a firmly established plight.

Therefore, when the Department of Conservation is ready to stop pussy-footing about and get truly serious about knocking off possums throughout New Zealand, all this nation needs to do is commit to sustained 1080 poison distribution for two, perhaps three, possum breeding cycles, then sit back and watch the native wildlife flourish.

If New Zealand’s team of resident malcontents would agree to just back off for a few years we can easily eradicate possums; we can also stop wasting DOC funding and resources on pointless half-arsed attempts at merely diluting New Zealand’s possum population.

This is actually such a small issue with such a simple solution, and if ecologists truly wanted to benefit wildlife – rather than just causing a fuss and ‘having their voices heard’ so they can feel as though they’re ‘doing their bit towards preserving nature’ – they would pull their heads out of their arses and they would permit a process of sustained possum eradication.

Short term, no question, native wildlife will suffer; long term, ultimately, you’ll have saved native New Zealand.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by E Cho Dipchit

Photography by Pullin Head-Uttas

 

A little while ago, while standing on the doorstep of my very own home, I was violated.

The assailant was a medium-height, average-build, middle-aged, not particularly good-looking, yet not unattractive, woman.

From around two minutes into the encounter the conversation played out as follows.

 

Me:      “Right, so, given all you’ve just told me, would you say you’re a supporter of the Evolution, or the Creationism belief?”

Her:     “Creationism, for sure – it’s the only theory that provides all the answers.”

“All the answers, right.”

“Yes, well the Evolution theory is full of holes – unexplained segments in history.”

“But you believe your beloved Creationism has no ‘unexplained segments’..?”

“Evolution brings up only questions, Creationism provides only real answers.”

“‘Real answers’..? Really?”

“There is nothing false about Creationism.”

“Yes, ‘nothing false’, except the magic.”

“The what, the magic?”

“Well that’s how I’d explain the phenomenon of a lone being creating an entire planet in – was it seven days?”

“Our Lord created the Earth in seven days, yes – that was his first miracle.”

“Oh I see, so it’s not ‘magic’, it’s ‘miracles’..?

“Correct, there is nothing ‘magical’ about our Lord, he is simply a worker of great miracles.”

“Oh he’s your Lord, not mine … So, you guys refuse to accept the myth of magic – in fact it’s considered one of the ‘black arts’, if I recall – yet you happily explain away otherwise inexplicable occurrences with that terribly convenient term, ‘miracle’..?”

“Ah, was there a question, sir?”

“Technically that was the question, you might have missed it, no problem though, I have another … When that incestuous being, Jesus Christ -”

“Ah, I think you mean ‘celestial’.”

“I know what I said – by Creationism logic this entire world is one big cesspit of incest anyway, given our entire population descended from just one couple…”

“And we all would have been one big perfect family too, if Adam hadn’t sinned.”

“Ah, is that how you explain Black folk?”

“I beg your pardon..?”

“Well as the story goes, both Adam and Eve were White – as were Kane and Abel…”

“Yes, but then they sampled the forbidden fruit.”

“Ah yes, that old chestnut, beware of rotten apples with their blackened cores, curse the iniquitous and such – although back to my question … When Jesus rose from the dead, after being brutally executed no less, then somehow managed to avoid becoming a zombie – as is the fashion in today’s world – you maintain that his rising from the dead was a miracle, yes?”

“That was just one of his many miracles, yes.”

“Right, see you guys call it a ‘miracle’ where I’d prefer the term ‘magical’ or, perhaps more accurately, ‘mythical’ or, more to the point, ‘make-believe’.”

“Sir, let me assure you, there is nothing make believe about our Lord and Saviour.”

“Yeah as I keep saying, he is your Lord, not mine, and that ‘Saviour’ part, well I can’t really abide that either but, back to it – you ‘assure me’ that your ‘Lord and Saviour’ is a genuine part of history, you know, rather than just being akin to Greek mythology or the like, but at least the Greeks can accept that their tales of gods, deities and other godlike entities are just myths and never actually took place, while you silly bloody God-botherers have become so entwined in this ‘myth of Creationism’, that your elders, your priests and the like, are all so bloody committed to the lie that is religion, that it’s actually warped your minds, like, you ‘pray’ to your ‘Lord’ – in other words you talk to yourselves – you ‘witness’ miracles – you perceive things that are not there – you are ‘healed’ by the hand of God – you undergo a quintessential placebo effect … Need I go on?”

“Please don’t sir, I think I understand your perspective … Your mind has clearly been taken by the Devil.”

 

At this point I choked. I honestly could not believe what I was hearing. So poorly scripted were this Christian door-knocker’s words, I actually glanced around expecting to see the Big Brother production team or something. ‘Your mind has been taken by the Devil’ – what does one say to that? Well, after forcibly recomposing, I’ll tell you exactly what I said to that.

 

Me:      “Ah … Are you are shitting me?” (I didn’t say it was an intelligent comeback, I just said that I said it.)

Her:     “When was the last time you went to church to worship our Lord and Saviour, sir?”

“Oh, shit, gee whiz, ah, last time I went to church, oh, must have been, shit, back in twenty-ten I think – although the only subject I was worshipping there was a pretty Hungarian girl I’d met in the days prior so, you know.”

“Yes, I do know … Sir it sounds like your soul is in desperate need of cleansing.”

“Yeah I dunno, last I checked it was pretty clean – I’m barefoot most of the time anyway.”

“Sir the only way you will banish the demons ravaging your soul is by repenting … Do you repent?”

“Ah, sorry, repent for what?”

“For your sins, sir.”

“Excuse me, how in God’s name can you profess to have any knowledge of my sinful behaviour?”

“I can see you are a good man, sir, but I can also see the Devil in your soul – I can see that your inner self is burdened by demons, sir.”

“Are you serious right now – are you actually saying these things to me?”

“I’m telling you what I see sir, that’s all, and I see your yearning for inner peace – our Lord and Saviour is offering your soul that very thing right now … Just ask for it and it shall be yours.”

“Seriously … Offering my soul a cleansing and peaceful bath – on the shores of the river Styx, is that it?”

“Not in the river Styx, no, that would be silly, but he can save your soul – save it from the torment I see inside you.”

 

No question, I was tormented; I was being tormented by this pious witch standing smugly before me. I was also pissed off. It was a Sunday afternoon, it was blowing nor’ west, I was hot, tired, and I didn’t give a toss what I said or indeed, who I offended.

 

Me:      “My God, you have to be the most outspoken, audacious God-botherer I have ever encountered … What you are likely seeing as you peer unashamedly into my ‘soul’, is an over-fifteen-year-old portion of damaged brain, which you’ve no doubt gone and mistaken for a resting demon – both horrific, both unwelcome and yes, both pretty fucking torturous.”

Her:     “I mean no offence sir, really, I’m just telling it like I see it, that’s all.”

“And you see the inferno of hell burning in my eyes..?”

“It’s your soul, sir, it’s your soul that has been corrupted by evil, that’s what I see in your eyes.”

“Shit that happened a very long time ago, probably fair to say by now I’ve become at one with my inward corruption.”

“If you repent your sins and accept God into your heart, your soul will be cleansed.”

 

At this point, standing barefooted as I was on the porch, I casually lifted my right foot and gazed querulously at the sticky lump of something that had affixed itself.

 

Me:      “You’re right, turns out my sole does need cleansing, but I’ll do that in the shower soon – might ‘cleanse’ something else while I’m there too.”

Her:     “You need to repent sir -”

“What, for my iniquitous thoughts..?”

“Yes.”

“But shit I have those thoughts multiple times a day – that’s a terrible lot of repenting.”

“The Devil is in your soul sir, open your heart to God – do it now and be saved from an eternity of torment.”

“Ah shit, are you gonna be there too?”

“Sir, I work through God, and God is everywhere – God sees all.”

“So he’s like Santa Claus..?”

“No, Santa Claus is not real.”

“But God, Hell, and Jesus H Christ, are..?”

“As real as you and me.”

“See, you’re talking fantasy again … Talk reality – I suppose you deny past existence of dinosaurs too?”

“Not at all.”

“Right, because there is tangible evidence of dinosaurs’ being here.”

“Yes, there is.”

“Not that you folk seem to need tangibility – it’s more about ‘belief’ with you guys, yeah?”

“That’s not totally true.”

“So when were they – the dinosaurs?”

“When, I’m not sure, wasn’t that millions of years ago?”

“Around six hundred and fifty million years ago, yes … Now where were they?”

“Well, they were everywhere, weren’t they?”

“On Earth though..?”

“Of course.”

“That’s what I thought, the very same Earth that God built in seven days, with no workshop, no materials, no tools, no basis of any kind – except of course a prospective illegitimate but immaculate son who would apparently go on to become a carpenter – yet he built a planet on which life would later thrive … So how long ago was that, you know, by your beloved ‘Myth of Creation’?”

“The Theory of Creationism, sir, maintains the Earth was created, ah, it was created somewhere, um, somewhere between ah, six and ten, ah, ten thousand, years’ ago…”

“I’m sorry, you, you trailed off there..?”

“The Earth was created between six and ten thousand years’ ago.”

“So was that, I’m sorry, was that before or after the dinosaurs?”

“I beg your pardon..?”

“Well, according to your ‘beliefs’ – of which dinosaurs are evidently a part – Planet Earth was created no more than ten thousand years’ ago..?”

“Ah, that is, that is, correct.”

“But how long ago did we establish that dinosaurs existed?”

“Um, I don’t, I don’t recall exactly, was it..?”

“Yes … It was considerably longer than ten thousand years’ ago.”

“Ah, that’s right, yes, it was … But I think you are forgetting, you are forgetting about the miracle of God…”

“You see my point then.”

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Pie S B Levers

Photography by Des Count Fox

 

 

 

 

 

Residents throughout many of our popular tourist destinations are unhappy at the increased number of visitors, supposedly encroaching on their section of New Zealand paradise.

These, classically first-world, complaints come only days after reports that ‘Tourism has overtaken Dairy as the country’s biggest earner’…

New Zealand’s so-called tourism hotspots, such as Queenstown in the South and Coromandel in the North, according to locals, have become so ‘overrun with tourists’ that their ‘lifestyles’ are being ‘compromised’.

…Makes me wonder if perhaps dairying needs a boost in these areas; remove all traces of benefits brought about by tourism – improved financing of respective councils along with improved commerce across the area, thus vastly improved infrastructure and living standards in general – and let’s bring in another few thousand of those smelly, noisy, muddy, hungry, messy, mooey and pooey, yet always friendly, dairy cows…

Those fortunate enough to own a portion of idyllic New Zealand in one of the aforementioned regions, understandably, would like conditions to remain the same as they were when these people purchased that slice of paradise all those years ago; understandable idealism, but unrealistic logic.

…Given the nature of New Zealand’s population growth over the past few decades – additionally with a major reduction in sheep numbers and increase in dairy cows – from 3.5 to now over 4.5 million of us cotton-wool-packed, flaccid-backboned, sugar-coated jelly-babies, as one might expect, so too has there been a shift in the nature of the land on which this swelling army of budding malcontents reside…

Along with the rest of this, now electronically intertwined, world, New Zealand must keep moving with the times; we must realise that without the blessing of international visitors there would be no funding, perhaps even no need, for the public recreation facilities, for the attractions, features or displays – also abundant public amenities – that we as Kiwis take for granted.

…Indeed through Internet, television, movies, and general international hype, New Zealand’s desirability as a tourist destination has become world renowned, and it seems only to be this reign of ‘classic Kiwi ignorance’ (a trait which those unnamed ‘ignorant’ prefer to pass off as their ‘she’ll be right Kiwi attitudes’ and which they actually consider an endearment because, let’s be fair, when it comes to self-assessment/reflection/acknowledgement, us Kiwis aren’t great) which is perpetuating this month’s token complaint (this is the clear result of a nation with insufficient genuine hardship – shortage of war, famine, persecution, displacement etc – to keep its people occupied) of ‘Somehow finding fault with the fact that most things about our country are great and that most people across the world happen to share this sentiment, but this is for some reason, a less than great result’…

‘Freedom campers’, campers who come to the country with little more than a vehicle and a tent – often also a surprising amount of expendable cash – have long been a source of discontent for Kiwi locals, the primary issue being one of ‘improper waste disposal’; that is, human waste which is frequently not disposed.

…Human congestion aside, it seems the actual reason behind New Zealanders’ apparent unwillingness to share with the rest of the world this bountiful tourist destination of ours, has less to do with ‘overcrowding’ and in fact more to do with ‘mistreatment’ – seemingly foreign overstayers fail to treat our land with the respect that we believe it ought to be treated…

Obviously the more tourists passing through our fine land, the better the infrastructure will have to become, therefore the more people we can have through thus the better the facilities and attractions around the country will become for everyone; additionally the more tourists the better the employment opportunities for Kiwis hoping to involve themselves in this industry, which would quickly see an end to that other issue the malcontents are constantly bemoaning – the apparent shortage of New Zealand job prospects.

…Curiously enough, this supposed ‘mistreatment of another nationality’s country’ sounds suspiciously akin to the way, as reports would have it – nay it sounds exactly like the way – (as reports would have it) that Kiwi tourists often act when we travel abroad.

Tourism benefits New Zealand; New Zealanders need to stop being such intolerant hypocrites and start benefitting from tourism.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by True Iswall Kim

Photography by Slicer Perry Dais

 

 

 

Possibly the world’s most recognisable leader, Donald J Trump is still further setting himself apart from the ordinary.

Indeed this extraordinary man will surely be remembered throughout American history, but perhaps for one aspect in particular: his ability, his desire, his unwavering dedication to maintaining election promises.

In the lead-up to the 2016 US election, while most Opposition party leaders were talking up the future prosperity of the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement, republican Donald J Trump went the other way, maintaining it would be ‘damaging to America’, and vowing to drop it the first chance he had.

Not a month after Trump’s being sworn in as President of the United States of America the US were officially no longer a part of the TPPA which – as well as rendering a few hundred hours of former New Zealand Prime Minister John Key’s time wasted time, spent travelling to and fro, also in talks with, former US president Barack Obama regarding that very agreement – must have been confounding for all those ignorant US (also bandwagon-jumping NZ) protesters who had for months previously been lobbying ‘against the TPP’, before seamlessly transferring their source of malcontent to the result of the US election, only to have the (already fervently contested, demonised and outright vilified) 45^th US President make this grand gesture (a move seemingly conducted in unwitting support of the protesters) by scrapping the TPPA meaning the protesters could no longer in any logical way protest, bitch or moan, either about Trump’s election or the TPPA.

He pledged also to step back from the Paris Climate Accord – citing another of his election promises – on the basis that forcing the foot of the world’s second biggest carbon footprint to effectively clean and trim its toenails was on course to ‘negatively affect’ Mr Trump’s intention to generate ‘increased employment opportunities across the States’, which was purportedly an integral part of his overall intention to ‘Make America Great Again’.

The arguably impetuous act to not be a part of this newly orchestrated attempt at managing Climate Change likely has something to do with Mr Trump’s previously publicised opinion that ‘Global Warming is a myth’…

If Trump were to perform some quick research he might discover that in fact the world climate is changing (this much is beyond dispute) and more likely the aspect he meant to discount as mythical was the supposedly scientific stance that Climate Change is occurring entirely as a result of manmade pollution or that the only way it can be rectified is with additional human intervention (even though the main cause of Global Warming is obviously the result of too many warm-bodied people existing and causing too much heat in general), which does sound terribly reminiscent of ‘scare-tactics stemming from years of ridiculously expensive company-funded research’; it also sounds conveniently biased, ignorantly narrow-minded, and just plain silly.

…Yet he has left a number of world leaders somewhat bemused as to, rather than immediately condemning it, why Trump would not just amend the Agreement to the US’s satisfaction but then, as the US – along with the rest of the world – must surely be coming to understand, Donald J Trump doesn’t make concessions, he makes promises; which he apparently keeps.

Inflammatory as his approach may have been so far and certainly, as much adverse publicity as he has garnered during this short term to date, President Donald J Trump genuinely does appear to have the best interests of his country at heart: in his opinion America was ‘falling apart’; the solution as he saw it, ‘get more people off the streets and into jobs’, which to his credit, is exactly what Mr Trump, even if sometimes in his roundabout and classically backhanded fashion, is endeavouring to achieve.

According to President Trump the reason for the US’s faltering economy – also the rise in terrorism – has largely to do with lenient border control hence excessive immigration into the US; so he promptly stepped forward in an attempt to put a stop to that, too.

As promised, Trump became suitably incensed when North Korean Dictator, Kim Jong Un, refused to cease his world-intimidation of test-firing potential nuclear warheads – admittedly harmlessly but indeed worryingly – into the ocean; engaging the portly Asian child in a much less damaging and rather more mature (but still potentially damaging and pretty immature) war of words including the issue of hollow threats, ultimatums, and/or propaganda.

In fact it seems the only major election promise that Trump has yet to put into action is his building of a wall between the US and Mexico – at Mexico’s expense no less – which, at this comparatively early stage in his presidency, no one could rightfully be any in doubt of the man’s intentions to do just that.

The fact that Donald J Trump is a nearsighted bigot is a truth that he seems to embrace rather than hide, yet once citizens of the USA have stopped playing Queens of Melodrama – the role for which they are so widely reputed – and eased the hysteria surrounding signing in of their unorthodox 45^th President, they might just come to realise that he is in fact not as self centred or as overcome with megalomania as many have been making out, and nor is he totally intent on destroying the environment or for that matter the entire free world…

(North Korea’s Kim Jong Un appears quite capable of managing that last part all by himself.)

…It would seem that President Donald J Trump, believe it or don’t, is actually in it for the people.

 

 

Article by Tim Walker

Edited by Meg Layman-Aya

Photography by Nat Jouster Blue-Hard