Urban trapping keeps possums off Peninsula

WAVERLEY and Shiel Hill are on the front line in the final push to rid the Otago Peninsula of possums once and for all.

For more than seven years, the Otago Peninsula Biodiversity Group has been trapping and killing possums on the peninsula, removing about 15,000 in that time.

Group project manager Ursula Ellenberg said it was worried possums could ‘‘reinvade’’ through Waverley and Shiel Hill.

‘‘We are slowly winning. There are still some out there but we have removed a lot and now we’re targeting the final hotspot on the peninsula.’’

The group is expanding its community trapping programme into the suburbs and a backyard trapping workshop for Waverley property owners was held at the weekend as part of the Wild Dunedin Festival.

Already about 30 landowners in the suburbs had joined the programme, she said.

‘‘That’s where the possums come back on to the Otago Peninsula and we need the local community in those more urban areas to help stop those possums invading the peninsula.’’

The group subsidises — through a Kiwibank Predator Free Community grant — Timms traps which can be placed in backyards.

‘‘Lots of people are part of the programme for different reasons but they all have that mission to get rid of possums.’’

The group had a goal of making the peninsula possumfree within the next five years, she said.

PHOTO: GREGOR RICHARDSON Goodbye possums . . . Otago Peninsula Biodiversity Group project manager Dr Ursula Ellenberg holds one of the hundreds of Timms traps the trust uses to trap and kill possums on the Otago Peninsula.