PROTECTION OF OPOSSUMS

Dominion, Volume 38, Issue 21, 19 October 1944, Page 4

PROTECTION OF OPOSSUMS

Continuation Favoured The Department of Internal Affairs recently asked the Wellington Acclimatization Society to consider the question of continuing the protection on opossums. Last night’s meeting of the council of the society approved a report by the chairman. Mr. D. J. Gibbs, in favour of continuation of protection. Mr. Gibbs pointed out that the society’s wild life officers reported that if protection was removed what was now a revenue producing industry would in a few years become a liability, and the Government would have to pay men to go into the bush to kill off the animals. Mr, Gibbs said that the majority of trappers were seasonal workers; and the opossum season fitted in well with their annual employment. If tho protection were taken off, men would be deprived of their seasonal occupation, as inexperienced persons would trap in the summer when the fur was of poor quality and of little value. Again, if trapping by 300 or more trappers were disorganized, it would not decrease the number of opossums, as systematic trapping by experienced men would give much better results.

Last year the Government received in licences-and fees the sum of £5416, out of which the societies received £l2OO, Wellington’s quota being £450. It would be an advantage to extend the season, and if the Wellington society was given its full share of the opossum revenue, it could employ several expert trappers permanently to trap any infested properties. There would not then be any necessity to lift the protection in forest areas, and a valuable industry would be retained.