Listen to this
Category: National. Posted: 4 April 2022
A selection of clips from the NZ Biosecurity Institute’s ongoing Oral History project is now available in the members’ section of the NZBI website. These clips are extracts from interviews carried out as part of the Institute’s ongoing Oral History project. Most are stored in perpetuity with Archives New Zealand. The NZBI executive committee is considering ways of making these recordings more accessible to members.
Representative clips include:
Ray Clary, former Senior Biosecurity Officer, Pest Animals with Wellington Regional Council, based in Wairarapa, talks about manually formulating pest control bait pellets. Ray retired in 2012. He has been involved with pest animal control in the Wellington region and elsewhere for more than fifty years.
Ray Clary talks about gun dogs, fumigation, getting the last rabbit, and what rabbits like.
Walter Stahel (29.12.1942 – 19.8.2020) talks about alligator weed control and the usefulness of weed mats. Walter was a Noxious Plants Officer, at the Bay of Plenty Regional Council. He retired in 2012. He began his biosecurity career in 1974 as a Rabbiter with the Hawkdun Pest Destruction Board in Central Otago.
Jack Powell (14.6.1925 – Nov 2013) talks about money for rabbit skins, cattle for rabbit control and farmers walking off the land. Jack began rabbiting in the 1930’s. At the time of his retirement in 1985, he was a Senior Field Officer with the Agricultural Pest Destruction Council, dealing with Pest Destruction Boards throughout the country.
Zoe Battersby talks about her experiences as the wife of a pest controller and attending conferences. Zoe is the wife of Les Battersby, who was Supervisor of the Kaikoura Pest Destruction Board at the time of his retirement in 1989. He began his pest control career in the mid-1950’s. Zoe is mother of Kevin Battersby also a pest controller.