The Animal Health Board isn’t worried by a campaign in the United States to ban the manufacture of 1080 poison.

All of the 1080 used here is sourced from Tull Chemical Company in Alabama, and New Zealand accounts for 90 per cent of its total business.

Lobby group Predator Defense is pushing a bill in the US Congress to have the poison banned, but AHB Research Co-ordinator Penny Fairbrother says there are other supply options.

“There are other options available to us now, we know China have set themselves up to manufacture it.

"I wouldn’t call us safe per se if the bill went through, but there are definitely other options there to pursue."

Ms Fairbrother says natural alternatives to 1080 such as sodium fluoroacetate aren’t viable.

"We did do a bit of a coping exercise about what it would take to grow the product naturally, and it is feasible, but of course it comes at a considerable cost.

"The other thing is chemically, if it’s from natural or synthetic sources, the makeup is still exactly the same.”