A group protesting at the use of the poison 1080 on the South Island's West Coast has put up billboards between Hokitika and Franz Joseph to catch the attention of tourists.
The billboards, featuring a skull and cross-bones, are an enlargement of warning signs used when 1080 is deployed in an area.
Tourism operator Peter Salter, who helped put up the signs, says the use of the poison affects New Zealand's clean green image. The signs are intended to alert more visitors to the fact that 1080 is being used in the hope they will complain to the Government, he says.
But Helen Lash, from the group TB Free West Coast, says 1080 is guarding New Zealand's international image, by protecting the country's meat exports from tuberculosis and its native wildlife from destruction by pests.
