Pest

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This is how to get rid of possums. You can use a gun which will kill them faster than most of the other ways you can kill them. If you use a gun first you need a gun and bullet to shoot and a gun license. The second way you can kill a possum is you can use a trap. If you use a trap you will have to whack it with a stick or shoot it to kill it. A trap is a slower death because you could catch it at the beginning of the night and not know it is there till the morning, though you can get cage traps where a possum walks in to eat the bait and the door will close behind the possum trapping it. The last known way to kill possums is poison. Poison will take quite a while to kill it but you don't have to do anything so you can just put down the poison and the possum will come along and eat it then it will think it is dehydrated you it will look for water but it is just the poison kill the possum possum within 190 minutes

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Possums are a major predator of native New Zealand birds. Possums attack chicks and also eat the eggs. They also eat the nectar and berries that native birds like to eat, reducing their food supply. This is putting many native NZ birds near extinction, one of these is the kiwi. With a national population of kiwis is just 24,550, ongoing possum attacks could mean they could be gone for good. Possums aren't the only pest that is killing kiwis, there are quite a few such as stoats, ferrets and rats .

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Paragraph 3: Possums Attacking

A human being attacked by a possum is very rare and you should know what to do if you do get bitten by a possum.

If bitten, what is the treatment for this

Yes, it can be treated,

However, it is important the disease is correctly diagnosed as the most effective antibiotics are often different to those used to treat other bacterial skin or wound infections.

Do possums have diseases?

Possums rarely have rabies. It is extremely rare for possums to be rabid as their body temperature is too low for the survival or replication of the rabies virus.

What causes the possum to attack humans?

it is very unlikely that an opossum will attack a human. If the possum is threatened enough, it can get aggressive with negative results. Possums avoid confrontation with humans by playing dead. But, if they feel threatened enough, they can even attack.

Paragraph 7: Killing Possums without harming NZ

The best way to put the possum is to shoot it in the head with a gun or a shotgun. An advantage of this method is that it will kill the animal instantly. However, if you haven't handled a weapon before, it might be dangerous for you to use it for the first time.

What does the community think about using poisons to kill possums?

In the Newshub dated April 2020, the controversial poison is back in the spotlight after many deer died following an air drop operation of 1080 targeting possums.

It reports that 1080 can also kill native reptiles, birds, fish and insects. Between 2008 and 2015, DOC recorded 24 kea deaths caused by 1080 from a population of 199 that were radio tagged. "Most dog deaths result from scavenging on poisoned possums, particularly the stomach."

Is poisons a good way to get rid of possums compared to trapping?

The use of traps to kill predators increases every year. Traps can be deployed effectively in easily accessible areas to control possum numbers. However rat populations are usually too high for traps to be useful. On a large scale, trapping is more expensive than poisons due to the difficulty of reaching remote areas and lack of employees therefore doing more labor, meaning traps can simply not be deployed fast enough or in sufficient numbers to control pest numbers. The main reason for using 1080 is that they are cheap and easy to use.

What types of poisons are used to get rid of possums?

1080, phosphorus, cholecalciferol, cyanide, brodifacoum, or pindone.

Did possums ever help us

In 1837 some early New Zealand settlers brought the Australian possum to New Zealand trying to start a fur industry. The first possum didn’t survive, but people did not stop trying. The first possum that survived was in the south island in about 1858. They used them to sell fur for quite a while till in 1946 they were declared a pest because they were killing native birds and they have been a pest for all the time after and they have become a big problem because they are putting many native birds near extinction and one of them is a kiwi and we don’t want them to go extinct. A Lot of people now have traps or guns to kill possums but the population of possums is still on the descent and this means we are getting rid of them faster than they can breed and this is what we want so we can get rid of them.

Conclusion:

In conclusion, the possums were brought to nz in 1837 by the fur trade because they were trying to make a bit of money. However they didn’t think of the long term damage that the australian possums would have on NZ. Their nativeland (Australia), they fit in perfectly with their ecosystem, but in NZ they didn’t have wild bushfires, dingos and less vegetation to keep their numbers low.