Thread: Note for all Kiwis in aussie

I was told last night by a Kiwi that possums carry TB and pass it on cattle, which causes dairy farmers a lot of problems.

The things you learn over a beer.

Yep, bovine TB is endemic in possums and they are perfect little vectors for spreading it out over a large geographical area pretty quickly. Dairy, beef and deer stock are valuable and so the PR war against possums has ready material right there. It is a major issue virtually anywhere in areas where bushland borders farmland. Isolated islands of bush within farmland can be controlled readily but where bushland bounds a farm, there is a constant flow of infection potential. Sick possums also do crazy things like wander around in the day time. Curious stock are attracted to something odd wandering in their paddock and so zoom in for a sniff. Cough, snort, one infected herd. However, it works both ways, one infected cow, can easily become many infected possums.

TB in farming areas is largely controlled using bait stations in the surrounding bush but because of the flow of possums from heavily populated areas into areas killed out, the flow of vector animals never ceases in these types of areas.

We have stock movement control regulations here. If you are in a TB infected area, your movement of stock is very closely monitored or controlled by different regulatory folk.

The call of "TB in the hills" also gives weight to mass poisoning of our countryside by the conservation department and others. A poison (Sodium fluoroacetate or 1080) that causes a slow painful death is spread by helicopter in baited pellets. Rats, mice, possums, stoats, weasels die as intended. However, anything that eats the dead animal and ensuing fly strike maggots is also prone to death by secondary poisoning. This mass poisoning is not good either especially with the 1080 poison they use.

Yep, no matter which way you look at it, possums are a real and present problem in NZ and to NZers, as in the damage they do to our orchards and food, flora and fauna, and in the methods deployed to control.

a possum tree

Tabing though the bush you come across a hole in the canopy. bright light shining in seems unnatural.
in the middle will be a large but dead tree, no bark and covered in scratch marks.
there will be no birds, in fact it will be admiringly silent.

i would always put 2-3 traps around this.

the numbers of possums in that one tree killed it and the surrounding trees and every thing else as well
compete with birds for food, and even eat the birds eggs, chicks, well every thing realy

Originally Posted by 85 county

a possum tree

Tabing though the bush you come across a hole in the canopy. bright light shining in seems unnatural.
in the middle will be a large but dead tree, no bark and covered in scratch marks.
there will be no birds, in fact it will be admiringly silent.

i would always put 2-3 traps around this.

the numbers of possums in that one tree killed it and the surrounding trees and every thing else as well
compete with birds for food, and even eat the birds eggs, chicks, well every thing realy

Hey mate, yeah, the party tree I called it. I found they were quite a spaghetti junction as trails led off them like a cart wheel. Possums are really quite social. They eat for the first few hours of the night, gossip, fight, root and party till dawn and eat their way home to their hole. Spotlighting over the years has shown up the pattern. Early in the evening, singular eating jacko, later on multiples of jacko, then later, cautious fed but catching a snack jacko. The pile of dead jacko around the party tree was up to three times higher around the vicinity of these tress than anywhere else on the trapline. Piles of dead jacko didn't deter them either as the live ones come out looking for uncles, aunties and their mates, smell them in the pile, and... snap!

Originally Posted by bob10

I have one piece of advice. .......... Ignore distractions. Bob

Hi Bob ...how is that ignoring distractions advice going? ...

Originally Posted by TerryO

Hi Bob ...how is that ignoring distractions advice going? ...

that post is a bit off

Originally Posted by windsock

Hey mate, yeah, the party tree I called it. I found they were quite a spaghetti junction as trails led off them like a cart wheel. Possums are really quite social. They eat for the first few hours of the night, gossip, fight, root and party till dawn and eat their way home to their hole. Spotlighting over the years has shown up the pattern. Early in the evening, singular eating jacko, later on multiples of jacko, then later, cautious fed but catching a snack jacko. The pile of dead jacko around the party tree was up to three times higher around the vicinity of these tress than anywhere else on the trapline. Piles of dead jacko didn't deter them either as the live ones come out looking for uncles, aunties and their mates, smell them in the pile, and... snap!

a bit like culling in queensland
drop some brumbies, then sit back and Wait for the pigs and fox. and never tell the owner that you didn't drop all the brumbies, need to leave a few for next time.

Mate Pig hunting over here is a laugh, shot guns walk around knocking them off like rabbits in the 70s. the natives will not eat them because they think they are full of worm, bleed and dress and its not a problem

Originally Posted by 85 county

a bit like culling in queensland
drop some brumbies, then sit back and Wait for the pigs and fox. and never tell the owner that you didn't drop all the brumbies, need to leave a few for next time.

Mate Pig hunting over here is a laugh, shot guns walk around knocking them off like rabbits in the 70s. the natives will not eat them because they think they are full of worm, bleed and dress and its not a problem

My Aussie mates think i am mad for eating wild boar.I love the taste of it!!!! They don't get that a hunt back home was a chance to fill up the freezer,there used to be a butcher in Tepuke that would do ham and bacon up for you and bloody nice sausages.

Me and my two dogs with a knife,not much skill to pull a trigger.