If the aspirational goal pans out we'd witness a resurgence of all manner of birds, reptiles, insects and flora.
That's why a local woman's outcry this week after spying a dead possum in a Napier City Council trap, is perplexing. She claims to be pro-eradication, but is opposed to the public process.
'Twas only luck, she said, that it was seen in enough time to shield her young niece's eyes from the "gory" spectacle. She argued council needed to lift the bar.
Thing is, if the brief was to kill a suburban possum in a tree trap, with the result being a dead suburban possum in a tree trap, I'd say the bar couldn't be lifted much higher.
Shot, council.
This dead possum in a council trap appalled a Napier resident.
This was a fat, flourishing marsupial obviously enjoying Napier's abundant fruits.
Given the current nesting season one shudders to think how many eggs and chicks of native birds it had devoured; surely that's a spectacle infinitely more grotesque than a dead possum.
At our place around 6pm most nights, a couple of kereru come to dine on the leaves of a plum tree outside the dining-room window.
Mine is a love affair with this biblical-like bird. The kids call me "weirdo" as the superlatives flow from my mouth when the portly pair make their clumsy entrance.
If a cat nears they flee in a whistling blur of green and grey. In that event their endemic presence leaves me feeling instinctively protective.
Hence, pests dispatched humanely for the betterment of our displaced fauna is nothing less than a form of natural justice.
Rather than perceiving a prone possum as macabre, I see life in its demise.
Instead of shielding the eyes of children methinks we'd be best to see it as a chance to impart that message.
