RURAL NEWS // AUGUST 9, 2016
14 NEWS
Possum busters not happy with plan Even as the Government announced an ambitious plan to eradicate possums from New Zealand, Lisa Pearce was at work in a multimillion dollar industry that treats the pests as a resource. NIGEL MALTHUS
BLENHEIM-BASED PEARCE and her husband Robin cover the top of South Island as part of a network of buyers collecting possum skins and fur from hunters and trappers throughout the country. In the week the eradication plan was announced, Lisa Pearce was meeting suppliers in Christchurch, Timaru and Oxford, North Canterbury, as they brought in hundreds of fresh pelts and several large sacks of alreadyplucked fur. She grades the pelts on the fly, sorting the best by size and quality to be tanned whole, and the rest to be plucked for their fur. Only 10% on average are good enough for tanning. The Pearces are agents for Basically Bush, Opotiki, which runs 13 procurement agents throughout the country and a specialised possum
skin tannery at Woodville. Rob Pearce says the demand for possum fur is “incredible”. Good suppliers can be hard to find, but Pearce has one young pair on his books who three years were only bringing in 1kg of possum fur weekly but are now up to 15-20 kg/ week. It’s not a job for everyone, he says. You have to be a loner, comfortable in the bush. Pearce himself does some trapping, but
the widespread war on possums is making it harder. “When I first started, say 13 years ago, I put a line out up here (Marlborough) and got 1200 for a three hour walk. I do the same line now and I’ll get eight or seven. We’ve knocked them right back.” On the day Rural News met Lisa Pearce at Oxford, none of her suppliers wanted to be identified, but to a man they were scathing of the
eradication plan. Not only would it be impossible, they said, it would cut into an industry which provided full-time employment for some and a handy sideline for many. “The Department of Conservation spends how many million dollars a year trying to eradicate them? But I think the possum industry alone puts $180 million back into New Zealand each year,” says Rob Pearce. “You could argue
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Possum skin and fur buyer Lisa Pearce sorts pelts during a buying trip to Oxford in North Canterbury.
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by Italians about 1976 and in its heyday processed 250,000 skins a year, but the worldwide antifur movement knocked demand through the 1990s, says Boot. Since then however, the development of possum-merino blend clothing has caused a resurgence, with sales, mostly to tourists, estimated at $130m a year. “From the late 1990s to the present day the demand for possum fibre has increased from a meagre few tonnes a year
to the 50-60 tonnes our company will harvest. There are others, so there could be 70-80 tonnes a year in total,” she says. Asked about the eradication plan, Boot chooses her words carefully, calling the idea commendable. But for the foreseeable future, the industry is secure. “We believe harvesting possums for commercial gain could assist in attaining the goal the Government wants to attain,” she says.
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there is a resource out there. It just needs to be managed.” Basically Bush, set up in 1998 by Sue and Steve Boot, is the biggest single player in the possum-buying industry, accounting for 85% of the trade. Sue Boot says they produced 53 tonnes of fibre last year, and the tannery dressed about 30,000 top-grade skins. They have taken at least one million possums a year since about 2003. The tannery was set up
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