A video that might have explained why a group of Ospri staff and contractors felt ''unsafe'' at a drop-in session in Wanaka on May 30 has been deleted.
Members of the Ospri group left the consultation session as about 30 members of the public arrived to discuss Ospri's plans for a helicopter drop of 1080 poison on 2000ha of hill country near Luggate.
The following day, a statement from Ospri said: ''... our staff had to leave because they were concerned for their safety.''
Meeting organiser and Luggate resident Tracey Morrow said ''nobody was even vaguely menacing or threatening''.
She told the Otago Daily Times two security guards were present and a video was taken.
The day after the meeting, the ODT requested a copy of the video.
However, in a statement on Friday, senior policy adviser for Ospri, Nick Hancox, who is Ospri's privacy officer, said on his instruction ''staff deleted the video after the meeting, on the basis that it contained personal information which as it transpired we had no reason to maintain any record of.''
The aerial drop of 1080 is scheduled for next month and
includes the 167ha Alice Burn, or Fallburn, Scenic Reserve managed by the Department of Conservation.
Doc community senior ranger Annette Grieve said the scenic reserve was gazetted in 2002 but ''the Alice Burn (Creek) does not have a marginal strip therefore there is no public access to the reserve''.
Ms Grieve said: ''isolated pockets of conservation lands and reserves that do not have public foot access are not uncommon''.
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The OSPRI staff I've encountered are fairly tough, so if they felt threatened I suspect they had good reason. A word of advice for the anti-1080 people - if you want consultation, don't give the people who are there to consult with you reason to feel threatened. Politeness is all.