\u201cPrecious places such as P\u016bkaha deserve protection.\u201d<\/p>\n
Possums were a serious threat to biodiversity, orchards and stock, she said.<\/p>\n
Wade-Brown is part of the Mangat\u0101rere Catchment Group, which works to enhance the water quality and biodiversity of the Mangat\u0101rere Stream. She was also a previous board member of Predator Free Wellington.<\/p>\n
She said there was a significant danger to wider conservation efforts in keeping possums at home as pets.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they escape or are released, they can cause serious damage to forest canopy, completely killing mature trees. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey are also a proven threat to native birds and their eggs.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not their fault that possums don\u2019t fit into our ecology in Aotearoa New Zealand and must be dispatched humanely. <\/p>\n
\u201cHowever, we can\u2019t undermine long-running successful conservation campaigns from councils and communities.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Greater Wellington Regional Council report said the council was aware of a small number of people keeping possums at home as pets.<\/p>\n
Council environment operations manager Myfanwy Hill said possums posed a serious threat to native birds and plants.<\/p>\n
\u201cNo one in the community should consider them pets.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe work hard to ensure native flora and fauna can thrive and be protected from pests such as possums. <\/p>\n
\u201cWhen they are kept as pets, it puts the health of our ecosystems seriously at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n
Predator Free Wellington project director James Willcocks said community involvement had been central to the success of the group\u2019s programme.<\/p>\n
\u201cPeople keeping possums as pets could deal a major blow to the hard work of so many in our communities over decades,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cPossums damage our trees, eat birds\u2019 eggs and can spread tuberculosis. <\/p>\n
\u201cWith Greater Wellington, we\u2019ve made great strides, removing possums from our region, so we ask that people look at the bigger picture, instead of trying to domesticate pests.\u201d<\/p>\n
– LDR is local body journalism co-funded by RNZ and NZ On Air<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cPrecious places such as P\u016bkaha deserve protection.\u201d Possums were a serious threat to biodiversity, orchards and stock, she…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":104241,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[9092,806,60504,115,75601,1389,5205,2740,48879,2518,702,16572,809,10934,111,139,69,4762,31252,75600,5914,147,47964,75602,8218,52,406],"class_list":{"0":"post-104240","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-wildlife","8":"tag-against","9":"tag-as","10":"tag-associate","11":"tag-calls","12":"tag-celia","13":"tag-conservation","14":"tag-council","15":"tag-former","16":"tag-greater","17":"tag-green","18":"tag-it","19":"tag-joined","20":"tag-keep","21":"tag-mayor","22":"tag-new-zealand","23":"tag-newzealand","24":"tag-nz","25":"tag-party","26":"tag-pets","27":"tag-possums","28":"tag-regional","29":"tag-science","30":"tag-spokesperson","31":"tag-wadebrown","32":"tag-warns","33":"tag-wellington","34":"tag-wildlife"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104240","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=104240"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/104240\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/104241"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=104240"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=104240"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=104240"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}