Photoblogging: the possum problem

WARNING - don't look at the last picture if you're squeamish
(You have been warned!)

There are some gruesome realities of wildlife in NZ that you know about but rarely come face to face with. This weekend we stumbled across a possum hunter relieving the bush of the Queen Charlotte Track of the cute but nevertheless vermin.

Introduced to in New Zealand in 1837 to establish a fur trade from Australia, the possum population now tops 70 million and chomps its way through seven million tonnes of vegetation per year. The damage to native forests can be seen all too clearly in many areas. Possums ignore old leaves and select the best new growth. In some areas they have eaten whole canopies of rata, totara, titoki, kowhai and kohekohe.

Possums compete with native birds for habitat and for food such as insects and berries. They also disturb nesting birds, eat their eggs and chicks and may impact on native land snails.
Dairy and deer farmers have the added worry of possums spreading bovine tuberculosis.
Possums are a nuisance in suburban gardens, and sometimes even indoors.

So the solution to the possum problem is to control the population and make nice warm socks, hat linings or woolly jumpers from their fur. I'm not sure how the industry works per say but we met a down to earth local possum hunter plying his trade in Marlborough Sounds.

Before you read on be prepared for something not so pretty to look at - this is not for the fainthearted. But, remember that without the possum hunters New Zealand wilderness would be overrun with this immigrant vermin and the few remaining land loving birds would be dead and gone or like the kiwi population restricted to tiny numbers in protected land. In short, this is the way of putting right the problems created by man in the first place.

So what does a cute possum look like?

So what does a 21 century possum hunter look like?

(complete with special adapted all terrain tractor)

So what does a dead possum without the fur look like?

(look away if you're sqeamish.......)