I have a confession to make. I'm a kiwi and I don't hate possums. I know, I know, but the thing is that I had a pet possum when I was 9yrs old and I loved him and now I just can't hate them. My dad used to run marathons and on a training run one night he came across a dead mama possum by the road and he spotted that she had a joey in her pouch. He rescued the baby and brought it home and we named him Winky. Winky was adorable in every way, he loved to ride on your shoulder and eat ice-cream from a cone which he could hold in his two hands like a little furry person. He also had a fondness for oddfellow peppermints and ripping posters off walls. I took him to my little brother's kindy once for show and tell. Eventually we had to give him up, he was very destructive inside and loved to make a shambles. He went to a farm park near our place where they had a possum colony in a huge enclosure. 6mths later he led a massive rebellion and break-out and his descendants probably ravage the surrounding environment to this very day. Somewhat ironically, both my dad and my younger brother are responsible for the death of thousands of possums, my dad being an avid possum trapper with a humane kill trap that he deploys on the bush reserve next to their home in Whangārei. My brother works for Landcare in Āwhitu and spends his day laying trap lines for rats and possums. I remain, ever so guiltily, very fond of possums. Sorry.
I also had a pet baby possum, rescued from his mama after my uncle shot her. He was the most adorable thing, like a little monkey. He didn’t live very long sadly as he was very small and we didn’t know what we were doing, but he ingrained in me a love of the little buggers. I feel bad for them, like I feel bad for the mice I’ve had to trap in my time. They didn’t ask to be brought here and become a pest, that’s all our fault and now we kill them for it. Poor things.
I still support the killing of them because our natives need us to fix our fuck ups, but it makes me sad.
Back when I was a science/bio teacher I had a student bring a tiny possum into school. It had no business being out of its mother's pouch. We also tried to keep it alive - with the same result as your experience, for the same reason!! And yes, I also totally get the mixed feelings about having to kill pest species. Thanks Kat!
Haha, yes, unfortunately there was the "great possum escape". I asked my dad a few years ago if he feels guilty about Winky and he said yes, but he feels he's made up for it with his truly heroic culling efforts - 1 trap and over 500 possum killed in the past 10 yrs!
I don't think there's any need to feel guilty for liking them. They are cute animals. I've got a lot of relatives in Australia who really love them. It's sad that so many of them have to be killed and I think it's okay to acknowledge that.
I myself have kept adorable pet rats (having said that, they were domesticated rats, desexed, and believed that cats were harmless, because my cat ignored them, so they had zero chance of contributing to NZ's pest problems).
I actually think it's incredibly sad that the conservation of New Zealand's unique species and the restoration of our environment is 95% killing things. This doesn't mean that I oppose the killing, I'm fully in support of large scale pest control for conservation and I even have a backyard trap (I'm in Wellington). I absolutely believe that we must protect and restore our biodiversity, I just think that it's okay to have empathy for the pests which didn't ask to be brought here (well, rats kind of did, but that's beside the point).
Just because animals are unsuited to the habitat doesn't mean you should hate them. Most trappers I know hate killing them, but it's the only way we can control them. If we could somehow sterilise them all, we'd do it tomorrow to avoid killing them. But it's possums or our unique birds, trees, insects, reptiles. And the only way to undo the damage we've caused by introducing them is to extirpate them.
I recall reading once that possums took quite a few release attempts (25ish) to take in NZ. If only they’d stopped after 24…
It’s easy to point the finger at possums for the ecological damage they cause but if they could talk they’d just turn around to us and ask ‘what the fuck do you think you’re doing then’.
Yeah. This. It took 20+ years of releases between 1837-1858 to establish a possum population here and overall 36 batches imported and released up till 1921 when govt finally put a stop to it.
Acclimatisation Societies were also releasing sparrows pheasants trout blackbird salmon and various plants, many of which flourish today. You can visit their original nurseries - now the Wintergardens in Auckland Domain and read the plaques celebrating their many successes.
Seems anachronistic but wasn’t until 1990 that the Societies were merged and became Fish & Game NZ who continue to promote the ‘management’ of sports fish and game birds.
None of which means anything to those delightful fuzzy cute creatures. So sad that they have been introduced in this way and are the scapegoats of their own mismanagement
Re: the common brushtail possum in NZ; even though I was also raised to hate it, I’m learning to realise it’s actually just another victim of colonisation. They are absolutely not meant to be in Aotearoa, and are just doing what they know now that they’ve been plonked here. We still need to make efforts to eradicate them, but damn… it’s not their fault!
I've taught our kids that it isn't the possum, or hedgehog, or other introduced species fault it's here in NZ. They was brought here by some silly people who didn't understand how damaging they would be. They're just doing what they evolved to do. But they are pests, and to protect our native species we need to kill them.
We're going to try and do that as humanely as possible, which is why we have a kill trap.
I'd been waiting for this piece with bated breath! Given that your modus operandi is setting the record straight with curiosity and compassion, opossums seem like such a natural fit for you.
Not only do I have a weird amount of experience with opossums, but I've also been a fiber artist for over half my life and first encountered the New Zealand possum on a tag for a skein of yarn which was listed as being a blend of wool and possum fiber. After holding Horace you'll probably agree opossum hair isn't as well suited to knitting socks with, but I do think they're softer than people would imagine. My realization that this tag meant the "horrifically cute" creature was quickly followed by the understanding of how they obtained this fiber, which was significantly less cute. I'd still like to picture shearing a small marsupial like a sheep, but the militia of schoolchildren would probably come for me.
I like to think of this wonderful fibre as giving meaning & purpose to their lives, despite having to be killed to protect helpless birds, insects, plants etc. - they are dead when it happens so plucking their fur & adding it to Merino wool has been one of the best ideas for warm light odour resistant clothing since ... the beginning of time?
I had a pet possum called Peter of course. My Dad put out traps for possums around my mother's prize rose garden(we took 40 thorny rose bushes from house to house and farm to farm as we were what is called share milkers in Aotearoa and moved a lot). Possums are very fond of eating rose buds and tips of new leaves and my mother was not at all fond of possums. So Dad trapped them and did away with them as humanely as possible. But one day he discovered a little possum in a pouch and he couldn't bring himself to despatch it. Hence Peter and I became firm friends and I took to carrying him around with me everywhere I went. Unfortunately Peter like climbing up curtains and jumping on those passing by. After hearing a dreadful shriek one night from my mother it appeared Peter had picked the wrong human to jump on and Peter was banished from the house forever. So, here's another NZer who quite likes possums. Horace does look rather sweetly soulful and I imagine him having a Southern American accent. I am not sure why.
Sure they're cute David, but in Kiwiland don't just deserve a bad rap, they have to go. Right by our house is a huge Totara that Herons nest in. Given a chance, possums attack. The Herons squawk wildly, arousing me from slumber and any possum in range ends up in the sights of my shotgun. We also deploy traps in an effort to keep numbers down.
The combined predation from mustelids, possums an cats is devastating to our bird life which is in trouble big time.
All the predators are cute, but like a weed in the garden they are in the wrong place wreaking havoc.
Totally - it just sucks so much as the little shits didn't ask for this. "New Zealand? Why the fuck are we going to New Zealand" I imagine them saying as they were caged up and shipped off...
Possums! I knew you'd get around to possums. You seem like someone who would appreciate them. They're such perfect, weird, perfectly weird little creatures. I grew up in Athens, Georgia where there are (or were -- I haven't lived there for decades) *many* possums everywhere, & we too mostly thought of them as vermin. But the summer after my dad died, I took a college writing course, & one guy came to class every day with a baby possum tucked into his hoodie. (He'd found it on the side of the road next to its dead mother & dead siblings.) Throughout the class period, this palm-sized possum would emerge out of the hoodie. Sometimes it would perch on the guy's shoulder & survey the room; sometimes it would climb up the back of his head & nest in his hair. It had round cartoon-character eyes, an enormous mouth that seemed too large for its body, & the tiniest, palest of pink toes. It was very hard not to love. After awhile, it would get tired of engaging with the outside world & return to the safety of the guy's hoodie. That possum was the gateway to my late-in-life affection for possums, so I love that you've written this & very much look forward to a possumcentric Flightless Bird episode.
I’m a linehaul truckie in New Zealand so not a big fan of our possums. I run between Cambridge and Hawera so see way too many of them (especially in the Awakino Gorge and around the lush farmland areas). I’m too big to swerve to miss them and they make a mess of the underside of my truck.
The US possum looking up is kinda cute though…
PS: I was a big fan of Speed Bump the Roadkill Possum cartoon on Liquid TV back in the day. I always thought he was just an absurd drawing but after seeing the US possum, I think he’s actually pretty close to the real thing ha ha.
I often think about possums and all the dead pukeko and rabbits on the road and why aren't we just farming these 🤔 not sure if I would necessarily eat them, but it's such a waste to see them all dead on the road.
The problem with possums in NZ is simply that they are introduced and neither the flora nor the fauna has evolved to adapt to them. In Tasmania, where they come from, they fit right in. If only we could round up all the NZ possums, where they are a plague, and send them to Tasmania, where they are endangered, everyone would be better off.
The sort of possum that lives in USA is native. Who are we to despise a naked tail when most of our bodies are devoid of hair? And how can humans, the most destructive animal on the planet, judge another animals value in its own environment? I suspect possums would leave a gap in their ecosystem, while the demise of human beings would allow most ecosystems to thrive. (Apart from Oz and NZ, where if uncontrolled, our introduced animals would trash the natives.)
Writing this from deep in the South Island - catching up on comments and DEAR LORD I love you lot x
If not friend, why friend shaped?
Hard agree.
Absolutely! X
I have a confession to make. I'm a kiwi and I don't hate possums. I know, I know, but the thing is that I had a pet possum when I was 9yrs old and I loved him and now I just can't hate them. My dad used to run marathons and on a training run one night he came across a dead mama possum by the road and he spotted that she had a joey in her pouch. He rescued the baby and brought it home and we named him Winky. Winky was adorable in every way, he loved to ride on your shoulder and eat ice-cream from a cone which he could hold in his two hands like a little furry person. He also had a fondness for oddfellow peppermints and ripping posters off walls. I took him to my little brother's kindy once for show and tell. Eventually we had to give him up, he was very destructive inside and loved to make a shambles. He went to a farm park near our place where they had a possum colony in a huge enclosure. 6mths later he led a massive rebellion and break-out and his descendants probably ravage the surrounding environment to this very day. Somewhat ironically, both my dad and my younger brother are responsible for the death of thousands of possums, my dad being an avid possum trapper with a humane kill trap that he deploys on the bush reserve next to their home in Whangārei. My brother works for Landcare in Āwhitu and spends his day laying trap lines for rats and possums. I remain, ever so guiltily, very fond of possums. Sorry.
I also had a pet baby possum, rescued from his mama after my uncle shot her. He was the most adorable thing, like a little monkey. He didn’t live very long sadly as he was very small and we didn’t know what we were doing, but he ingrained in me a love of the little buggers. I feel bad for them, like I feel bad for the mice I’ve had to trap in my time. They didn’t ask to be brought here and become a pest, that’s all our fault and now we kill them for it. Poor things.
I still support the killing of them because our natives need us to fix our fuck ups, but it makes me sad.
That's how I came to have a pet goat, Frisky!
Yes, I do support the culling also, because I know that it's so important to protect our indigenous and unique species.
Back when I was a science/bio teacher I had a student bring a tiny possum into school. It had no business being out of its mother's pouch. We also tried to keep it alive - with the same result as your experience, for the same reason!! And yes, I also totally get the mixed feelings about having to kill pest species. Thanks Kat!
This is an amazing perspective to have! Plus no damage done to the environment while in your care!
Oh I read on... the escape! Haha I take it all back (but do note the culling efforts)
Haha, yes, unfortunately there was the "great possum escape". I asked my dad a few years ago if he feels guilty about Winky and he said yes, but he feels he's made up for it with his truly heroic culling efforts - 1 trap and over 500 possum killed in the past 10 yrs!
I don't think there's any need to feel guilty for liking them. They are cute animals. I've got a lot of relatives in Australia who really love them. It's sad that so many of them have to be killed and I think it's okay to acknowledge that.
I myself have kept adorable pet rats (having said that, they were domesticated rats, desexed, and believed that cats were harmless, because my cat ignored them, so they had zero chance of contributing to NZ's pest problems).
I actually think it's incredibly sad that the conservation of New Zealand's unique species and the restoration of our environment is 95% killing things. This doesn't mean that I oppose the killing, I'm fully in support of large scale pest control for conservation and I even have a backyard trap (I'm in Wellington). I absolutely believe that we must protect and restore our biodiversity, I just think that it's okay to have empathy for the pests which didn't ask to be brought here (well, rats kind of did, but that's beside the point).
Just because animals are unsuited to the habitat doesn't mean you should hate them. Most trappers I know hate killing them, but it's the only way we can control them. If we could somehow sterilise them all, we'd do it tomorrow to avoid killing them. But it's possums or our unique birds, trees, insects, reptiles. And the only way to undo the damage we've caused by introducing them is to extirpate them.
Well said, Annie. Complex things / feelings bumping up against each other.
I recall reading once that possums took quite a few release attempts (25ish) to take in NZ. If only they’d stopped after 24…
It’s easy to point the finger at possums for the ecological damage they cause but if they could talk they’d just turn around to us and ask ‘what the fuck do you think you’re doing then’.
Yeah. This. It took 20+ years of releases between 1837-1858 to establish a possum population here and overall 36 batches imported and released up till 1921 when govt finally put a stop to it.
Acclimatisation Societies were also releasing sparrows pheasants trout blackbird salmon and various plants, many of which flourish today. You can visit their original nurseries - now the Wintergardens in Auckland Domain and read the plaques celebrating their many successes.
Seems anachronistic but wasn’t until 1990 that the Societies were merged and became Fish & Game NZ who continue to promote the ‘management’ of sports fish and game birds.
None of which means anything to those delightful fuzzy cute creatures. So sad that they have been introduced in this way and are the scapegoats of their own mismanagement
I had no idea it was THAT much of a mission. Humans really just kept going for it, eh. Then, "Oops, maybe some bad consequences for that one...."
Oh my goodness yes!
Re: the common brushtail possum in NZ; even though I was also raised to hate it, I’m learning to realise it’s actually just another victim of colonisation. They are absolutely not meant to be in Aotearoa, and are just doing what they know now that they’ve been plonked here. We still need to make efforts to eradicate them, but damn… it’s not their fault!
FAIR
I've taught our kids that it isn't the possum, or hedgehog, or other introduced species fault it's here in NZ. They was brought here by some silly people who didn't understand how damaging they would be. They're just doing what they evolved to do. But they are pests, and to protect our native species we need to kill them.
We're going to try and do that as humanely as possible, which is why we have a kill trap.
You are a good parent. 10/10 with that messaging imo.
That mesoamerican legend with the fire reminded me of the tale of Māui getting fire from Mahuika
Oh my god, that's his tail? I thought he was sitting on a parsnip.
It's a bit beefy as he loves eating and that's where his fat reserves go!
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 this brought me joy Thank you
Look at those puppy dog eyes! And New Zealand possums are INCREDIBLY cute. Thank you for adorable things in my inbox today.
BIG puppy eyes. Quivering little eyebrows.
More adorable when squished
I'd been waiting for this piece with bated breath! Given that your modus operandi is setting the record straight with curiosity and compassion, opossums seem like such a natural fit for you.
Not only do I have a weird amount of experience with opossums, but I've also been a fiber artist for over half my life and first encountered the New Zealand possum on a tag for a skein of yarn which was listed as being a blend of wool and possum fiber. After holding Horace you'll probably agree opossum hair isn't as well suited to knitting socks with, but I do think they're softer than people would imagine. My realization that this tag meant the "horrifically cute" creature was quickly followed by the understanding of how they obtained this fiber, which was significantly less cute. I'd still like to picture shearing a small marsupial like a sheep, but the militia of schoolchildren would probably come for me.
I like to think of this wonderful fibre as giving meaning & purpose to their lives, despite having to be killed to protect helpless birds, insects, plants etc. - they are dead when it happens so plucking their fur & adding it to Merino wool has been one of the best ideas for warm light odour resistant clothing since ... the beginning of time?
Adding possums to the list of animals I will have to restrain myself from petting.
(It's a long list. I saw a skunk once and desperately wanted to pick it up.)
Cute and stinky! I had a boyfriend like that once
I had a pet possum called Peter of course. My Dad put out traps for possums around my mother's prize rose garden(we took 40 thorny rose bushes from house to house and farm to farm as we were what is called share milkers in Aotearoa and moved a lot). Possums are very fond of eating rose buds and tips of new leaves and my mother was not at all fond of possums. So Dad trapped them and did away with them as humanely as possible. But one day he discovered a little possum in a pouch and he couldn't bring himself to despatch it. Hence Peter and I became firm friends and I took to carrying him around with me everywhere I went. Unfortunately Peter like climbing up curtains and jumping on those passing by. After hearing a dreadful shriek one night from my mother it appeared Peter had picked the wrong human to jump on and Peter was banished from the house forever. So, here's another NZer who quite likes possums. Horace does look rather sweetly soulful and I imagine him having a Southern American accent. I am not sure why.
Sure they're cute David, but in Kiwiland don't just deserve a bad rap, they have to go. Right by our house is a huge Totara that Herons nest in. Given a chance, possums attack. The Herons squawk wildly, arousing me from slumber and any possum in range ends up in the sights of my shotgun. We also deploy traps in an effort to keep numbers down.
The combined predation from mustelids, possums an cats is devastating to our bird life which is in trouble big time.
All the predators are cute, but like a weed in the garden they are in the wrong place wreaking havoc.
Totally - it just sucks so much as the little shits didn't ask for this. "New Zealand? Why the fuck are we going to New Zealand" I imagine them saying as they were caged up and shipped off...
Possums! I knew you'd get around to possums. You seem like someone who would appreciate them. They're such perfect, weird, perfectly weird little creatures. I grew up in Athens, Georgia where there are (or were -- I haven't lived there for decades) *many* possums everywhere, & we too mostly thought of them as vermin. But the summer after my dad died, I took a college writing course, & one guy came to class every day with a baby possum tucked into his hoodie. (He'd found it on the side of the road next to its dead mother & dead siblings.) Throughout the class period, this palm-sized possum would emerge out of the hoodie. Sometimes it would perch on the guy's shoulder & survey the room; sometimes it would climb up the back of his head & nest in his hair. It had round cartoon-character eyes, an enormous mouth that seemed too large for its body, & the tiniest, palest of pink toes. It was very hard not to love. After awhile, it would get tired of engaging with the outside world & return to the safety of the guy's hoodie. That possum was the gateway to my late-in-life affection for possums, so I love that you've written this & very much look forward to a possumcentric Flightless Bird episode.
I’m a linehaul truckie in New Zealand so not a big fan of our possums. I run between Cambridge and Hawera so see way too many of them (especially in the Awakino Gorge and around the lush farmland areas). I’m too big to swerve to miss them and they make a mess of the underside of my truck.
The US possum looking up is kinda cute though…
PS: I was a big fan of Speed Bump the Roadkill Possum cartoon on Liquid TV back in the day. I always thought he was just an absurd drawing but after seeing the US possum, I think he’s actually pretty close to the real thing ha ha.
You must see SO MANY possums on your runs, Lance. I can only imagine.
the only thing they're good for is their fur!
I've just perplexity searched and looks like the TB can be fried out! Probably tastier than crickets as a sustainable food source
Except - we don't want them to be sustainable 🤔 better than 🐄 though
I often think about possums and all the dead pukeko and rabbits on the road and why aren't we just farming these 🤔 not sure if I would necessarily eat them, but it's such a waste to see them all dead on the road.
Pukeko are also a pest introduced from Australia.
The problem with possums in NZ is simply that they are introduced and neither the flora nor the fauna has evolved to adapt to them. In Tasmania, where they come from, they fit right in. If only we could round up all the NZ possums, where they are a plague, and send them to Tasmania, where they are endangered, everyone would be better off.
The sort of possum that lives in USA is native. Who are we to despise a naked tail when most of our bodies are devoid of hair? And how can humans, the most destructive animal on the planet, judge another animals value in its own environment? I suspect possums would leave a gap in their ecosystem, while the demise of human beings would allow most ecosystems to thrive. (Apart from Oz and NZ, where if uncontrolled, our introduced animals would trash the natives.)