Possum bounties expensive & inefficient, says DoC

Ruapehu Bulletin, Volume 12, Issue 582, 18 April 1995, Page 7

Possum bounties expensive & inefficient, says DoC

In the debate over possum control in New Zealand, some interests have advocated that the government pay hunters a bounty. Conservation minister, Denis Marshall argues that bounty hunters only work in western movies. In the real world, he says, they are an expensive and inefficient failure. The following article, provided by the Minister of Conservation' s office, backgrounds the case.against a bounty on possums. Wasps, hawks, shags, deer, feral pigs, feral goats, possums and hedgehogs — not a random selection from the Noah's Ark passenger schedule but a list of animals that past New Zealand authorities have attempted to control by offering ai bounty and failed. It's an old argument that re-surfaces periodically, especially when unemployment is high : "Gi ve a bloke a few dollars per head and your possum (wasp, deer, pig, goat etc.) problem will be over.

Gotta be cheaper than spending millions on poisorting." Unfortunately, it doesn't work. It isn't a cheap option. It is an expensive and inefficient one. DoC's possum control programme aims to protect native plants and animals in priority areas. To do that it has to reduce possum numbers by about 70 per cent and hold them there. Bounty advocates argue that paying as little as $2 per skin would be incentive enough to send scores of hunters into the woods to obliterate possums. At $2 a head some hunters could make a very good living. But, experience shows, the impact on possum population levels would be almost zero because only "easy" possums would be worth taking. For there to be sufficient incentive for hunters to take enough possums to significantly reduce the total possum population, the bounty would have to

be much higher. From 1951 to 1961 there was a bounty of two shillings and sixpence to control possums. A useful way to relate that to today's figures is to calculate how many bounties were needed to achieve the average weekly wage in the 1 950' s and then divide the average weekly wage today by that number. Using this method the bounty was $13.33 per possum, a reasonable amount. Yet, the bounty system failed to control possum numbers. Poor value The worst aspect was that the bounty didn' t gi ve value for money. Most skins came from "nuisance" possums in prosperous farming and semiurban areas, or from possums killed on country roads, rather than from areas where possums were critically affecting agricultural production, watershed protection or natural landscape and wildlife values.

There is no reason to suppose that the same would not happen if a bounty were offered today. It' s a lot easier to kill a possum in the neighbouring pine plantation than to slog off into the bush to get one. Nor did the previous bounty produce sufficient incentive to have any effect on possum numbers. Indeed, during the bounty period possum populations continued to expand." Ironically, at least part of that expansion was a direct result of possum subsidies. The fact that possum now threatens pohutukawa in the Coromandel and Northland is because hunters deliberately introduced the pest to those areas when the bounty was in force in order to have a local population to "farm". On historical evidence, therefore, a bounty of say $2 to $10 a possum would be unlikely to be sufficient to reduce possum numbers to the extent that damage to the environment, or the risk of Tb TURNTOPAGE11

Possum bounties expensive & inefficient, says DoC

FROMPAGE7 infestation, was removed or minimised. Even an incentive level reflecting the earlier bounties period, say $15 a possum, would be unlikely to give adequate results and would cost at least $150 million a year - assuming a take of about 10 million possums annually, the minimum required to reduce possum populations by 40 percent and hold them there. Current government spending on possum control is at least $30 million, $10 million of which goes into research and the rest is very carefully targeted for the best results. Areas chosen for possum control are important to prevent the spread of tuberculosis or to protect outstanding native plant and wildlife values. In other words, the money is being spent where it is

most needed. A bounty system cannot do that. There is no way to differentiate between a possum caught from a pine plantation near an urban area, where there is no Tb threat or risk to natural values, and a possum caught in a national park or at the boundaries of a Tb control area. Easy targets Further, the possum in the easily accessible area is that most likely to be harvested, yet the greatest benefits - certainly to conservation control of possums - often occur through control of remote and wild areas. Therefore DoC, at least, would probably have to continue with its own possum control operations so that a bounty would become an expensive addition, rather than an "instead-of '. Another argument against bounties is the experi-

ence of the past that hunters do not reduce numbers to the point when disease risks damage to the natural environment can be sustained at a minimum level. Instead hunters tend to take the "easy possums". Once an area's population drops as little as 20 per cent, the effort required to catch each possum becomes greater. It is more economic for hunters to move on to a "fresh" block, leaving possum numbers in the hunted area still high enough for a rapid regeneration to previous levels. Employment Others have argued that bounties would create employment. That is doubtful in that it would probably simply displace current employment on possum control programmes. And, given the low impact, such a scheme is likely to have on possum numbers, paying a bounty risks becoming nothing

but a very expensive employment scheme. Existing possum controls are already good employers. DoC contracts out two thirds of its possum control to ground crews. Aerial operations also generate employment and are often carried out on land where access for the ground hunter would be diffxcult and/or uneconomic. Many deals work on the basis that trappers are not paid for the first 20 per cent of possums trapped because the rewards from the sale of skins will be economic while they are at a high density and easy to catch. DoC funding kicks in to subsidise the trappers' expenses as numbers drop below economically viable densities. A bounty places a value on the existence of possums. There is no incentive to reduce numbers.