Possum eradication plans grow at Horizons

NOT SO CUTE: Possums are the No1 pest in the Horizons Region. PHOTO/FILE

Nine years of intensive possum control are paying off, Horizons Regional Council environment manager Craig Mitchell says.

The council plans to continue and expand its own possum control work, but not to carry on giving OSPRI (Operational Solutions for Primary Industries) $700,000 towards its activities next year. OSPRI was formed by the merger of the Animal Health Board and National Animal Identification and Tracking on July 1, 2013.

Possums are the region's No1 pest. Killing them helps keep cattle and deer free of TB and reduces damage to crops, forest and pasture.

In the mid-1990s there were 300 TB-infected herds of stock in the region, and Horizons provided funding to the Animal Health Board (AHB) every year. Now there is only one infected herd.

The council began its own possum programme in 2006. TB infection was reducing then, and so was the amount of possum control done by the AHB. Horizons wanted to keep possum numbers at that low level, to benefit farming operations and biodiversity.

This year the area given intensive and sustainable possum control from Horizons grew to 1 million hectares. Across it possum numbers were reduced 75 to 80 per cent.

Farmers have reported less crop damage, more native birds, more flowers and fruit on trees, healthier bush and fewer dead possums on the road.

Horizons now aims to extend control to all the rateable land in the region by 2017 - a total of 1.7 million hectares.

Councillors have decided not to give OSPRI its usual $700,000 - which climbs to $1.4 million when matched with government funding - despite an appeal from OSPRI manager Peter Alsop for one more year of funding. He said OSPRI had no alternative source so far, and its programme would suffer.

Horizons based its decision on a funding review that decided OSPRI cash should still come from landowners but not be collected by councils. The review said other collectors should be used - one could be government and the other a percentage of levies on animals killed and milk processed.

The matter up for submissions on Horizons' Long-Term Plan. As of Thursday last week, Mr Mitchell said no one had submitted on the possum funding issue and submissions closed on Monday.

Horizons chief executive Michael McCartney had surveyed other councils, to find out whether they would be funding OSPRI. He found Hawke's Bay, Auckland, Napier, Wellington, Taranaki, Canterbury, Northland, Gisborne and Bay of Plenty had decided not to. However, Tasman was likely to, as were Southland, Otago and the West Coast, where TB is more common.