Warning against Opossums.

South Canterbury Times, Issue 6329, 24 September 1890, Page 3

Warning against Opossums.

Tne Western Star. (Riverton) says : —A former resident in this district, Mr W. A. Lyon, now settled in Victoria, having noticed that it was proposed to ask Government aid for the purpose of importing and protecting opossums, writes to a friend in strong denun* ciation of the little marsupial, and warns settlers to oppose their introduction to the colony. He says ;—“ Since I came here I have bad to pay men every year to kill them, and the value of their skins will not pay the cost of their destruction. It will be a great mistake to let the vermin (for they are nothing else) to become protected till they get so numerous that they cannot be kept down. Continuing, ho gives si list of their iniquites : They take and destroy all sorts of fruit except the orange; all vegetables from a cabbage to an onion ; they mount grain stacks and lay waste more grain than ever I have known rats so do; even after threshing they find a way into barns and tear the begs to pieces. ' An .enclosure with -wire neeting put to a height of 12ft is insufficient to keep them out, for they easily sped ever it. They do not live on the bark of trees as some suppose, but destroy armuch gross as would keep a good few sheep;