OPOSSUMS & FORESTS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 26 August 1938, Page 7

OPOSSUMS & FORESTS

LIBERATION OF ANIMALS OPPOSED. NEED FOR CONSERVATION. Captain E. V. Sanderson, President of the Forest and Bird Protection Society, says he feels sure that all lovers of native forests and birds will be seriously concerned with the movement of the Wellington Acclimatisation Society to obtain the consent of the Department of Internal Affairs to the liberation of opossums in forest areas where these destructive animals are not already present. It is evident from the report of the society’s action. that it has in mind, obtaining further revenue at the expense of the forests and birds, in which all people of New Zealand and their descendants, have a proprietary interest. Captain Sanderson declares that this is another case where the Acclimatisation Society’s view is not the national view—another, case of a mistaken outlook, after othei’ disastrous blunders in the importation of animals which have proved deadly enemies of native forest and bird life. He recalls the case of deer, of which the blame for the wide distribution and therefore huge increase, can be put upon Acclimatisation Societies, particularly the Wellington Society, which farmed the animals at Paraparaumu, and distributed them throughout the Dominion. It will cost a very large sum of money to win the war against the deer, but it has to be won if the forests are to be saved, forests which are a necessary protection for some very large areas of farming country in the North and South Islands.

“I feel sure,” states Captain Sanderson, “that the general public of New Zealand will strongly approve a refusal of the Minister of Internal Affairs to consent to the foolish request. Far from agreeing to surrender additional forest areas to alien animals, the Minister would please the people of New Zealand by more rigorous control of the pests in woodlands, where they have been so unwisely liberated.” The request, moreover, if acceded to, would include islands upon which some forms of unique fauna and flora have continued to exist, simply because of isolation and the non-exist-ence thereon, of such exotic enemies as the opossums, weasels, stoats, cats, etc. “There is definite evidence,” he continues, “that opossums have their own peculiar method of injuring forests, by feeding on the upper canopy, and they are also accused of robbing the nests of native birds, and comneting with them in certain food supplies. One has to remember, also, that with a change of fashion, the fur industry might suffer a slump, and then the menace would quickly become almost impossible to control. It -has to be also remembered that the trappers themselves do much damage in the forests by blazing the bark of the mature trees and hacking down the younger growth. Why take the' risk of further mischief in forests which have had a very poor deal from Europeans during the ' past 100 years? Any change now, surely, should be one for conservation, not for the encouragement of further destruction.”