A CASE FOR CAUTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 44, 20 August 1938, Page 8

A CASE FOR CAUTION

A proposal that the Government should undertake "the liberation of opossums in all large areas of forest" has been forwarded by opossum trappers to the Wellington Acclimatisation Society, with a request that the proposal be placed by the society before the Minister of Internal Affairs, (Mr. W. E. Parry). While it may not be demonstrable that the opossum is definitely harmful to bird life in the way that weasels, stoats, rats, and cats are, or that tlie opossum is as harmful to forest vegetation as are deer, sufficient suspicion attaches to the opossum to warrant a policy of caution. The doubts are such that, if the question of introducing opossums to New Zealand #ere raised today, the responsible Minister, on present information, might well pause. That question was answered, however, years ago, and the answer is beyond recall; but the further proposal to liberate opossums in parts of New Zealand where they do not now appear to exist gives the Minister of Internal Affairs a chance to use his discretion on the side of caution, if only in a local and restricted sense. Since it is doubtful whether certain winter employment and certain trapping-licence revenue ' (for Government and acclimatisation societies) compensate for the presence of the opossum on the Tarabruas and ,in Wellington suburbs, why should the Government aid or abet the further distribution of this exotic animal ?■> A satisfactory answer to that question should precede any new attempt to spread opossums, ahd it is not yet forthcoming.