1080 (poison)

1080 is the commonly used name for sodium fluoroacetate (also known as sodium monofluoroacetate), a potent metabolic poison used primarily to control mammalian pests.

History

Sodium fluoroacetate was discovered by German military chemists in World War II. The chemical was highly potent – theoretically, one tenth of a gram could kill a grown man – but it was difficult to deliver, requiring ingestion or injection for optimal effect. As such, it was largely overlooked until it was independently rediscovered by American chemists researching pesticides. The name "1080" refers to the catalogue number of the poison, which became its brand name.

Mechanism of Action

1080 is believed to disrupt the citric acid cycle (also known as the Krebs cycle). In the body the fluoroacetate is converted to fluorocitrate, a compound which prevents citrate from being used in the cycle. This results in an accumulation of citrate in the blood, and deprives cells of energy, leading to a slow and painful death as the body "suffocates from within".

Symptoms and Treatment

The symptoms of poisoning normally appear between 30 minutes and four hours after exposure. They include vomiting, involuntary hyper-extension of the limbs, convulsions, and finally cardiac and respiratory collapse. There is no known effective antidote. In humans, 1080 poisoning has somewhat similar symptoms to an acute heart attack.

Sublethal doses may cause damage to tissues with high energy needs – in particular, the brain, gonads, heart, lungs and foetus.

Sublethal doses of 1080 are typically completely metabolised and excreted within four days.

Natural Occurrence

Sodium fluoroacetate occurs naturally in at least 40 plants in Australia, Brazil and Africa. It is believed that the compound is even present in tea leaves in tiny amounts. The Australian pea family Gastrolobium ("poison peas"), have 1080 in the leaf tips and seeds. This forces livestock farmers in Western Australia to hand-weed out all the poison from their paddocks. It also means that some Western Australian herbivores have developed (by natural selection) partial immunity to the effects of fluoroacetate.

Uses

1080 is used in New Zealand to control the possum, an animal pest introduced from Australia. As the Common Brushtail Possum is from the eastern states of Australia and is a mainly arboreal forager, it has never developed a resistance to 1080.

Project Western Shield is a recent project to boost populations of endangered mammals in south-west Australia. The project is to drop 1080 baited meat from helicopters or light aircraft to kill predators. Wild dogs and foxes will readily eat the baited meat. Cats pose a greater difficulty as cats aren't interested in already dead animals. However, recently a pilot tried putting small sound generators inside the baits with significant positive results.

1080 isn't always used for conservation, however. In Tasmania logging companies attempted to use it to kill herbivores in tree plantations. This was seen as unjustified and led to its ban in Tasmania.

External Links

• New Zealand Department of Conservation perspective on the use of 1080
• Western Australian CALM report on their Western Shield project.
• Press release on the ban of 1080 use in Tasmanian forests
• Notes on 1080 use for controlling predators in Idaho