OPOSSUMS.

Forest and Bird, Issue 48, 1 May 1938, Page 15

OPOSSUMS.

A number of Acclimatisation Societies have applied for a close season for opossums this year. The value of such skins is at present at a low ebb. Thus is the ground being prepared for another menace such as that of rabbits and deer. The presence of opossums in our forests can easily become another major disaster if the price of skins remains low.

One forester claims that these creatures confine their harmfulness to orchards and gardens. It is certainly difficult to follow the logic of such a declaration, nor do observations and reports uphold such a claim.

Apart from the damage done by the opossum themselves, grievous harm is done by trappers in the forests who are not restrained from heavily blazing well matured trees and slaying many saplings. Their traps, too, kill and maim numbers of kiwi and other birds.

Revenue, however, has been forthcoming from opossum skins in past years, and when this is the case its recipients are usually prepared to gloss over all the harmful assertions and take the risk of another grave menace being encouraged. '

Future historians, no doubt, will be I able to record another unheeded warning if skin values remain low, and the taxpayer will have to shoulder a further burden.