Watching the fur fly
Possums’ power pelt industry
The possum fibre and fur industry is on a mission to prove it meets strict, international humane standards.
The industry is worth in excess of $120 million a year to the economy, with around 1.2 million possums harvested from forests, farmland and woods each year.
The tourist trade is driving that growth, but possum-merino yarns are beginning to make an impact in the Northern Hemisphere, where there is sensitivity to any taint of cruelty on fur-products.
So the Fur Council of New Zealand has hired scientist Bruce Warburton from crown agency Landcare Research, to compare possum harvest practices in New Zealand, where lightweight leg traps and cyanide are used, with standards developed internationally by the likes of Canada and Russia.
The Fur Council’s Neil Mackie: ‘‘In the Northern Hemisphere there is a quite strong feeling about what is acceptable.’’
Mackie believes the project will demonstrate New Zealand’s possum harvest meets international best practice.
The widening popularity of luxury possum-merino yarn overseas means the industry must be prepared to demonstrate it, if challenged.
Warburton says the light-weight traps used in New Zealand are designed to hold possums, but not to break bones, and to minimise lacerations.
The National Pest Control Agencies standards for pest control govern best practice trapping of possums.
Warburton is also investigating what density of possum population is needed to allow the possum fur and yarn industry’s to remain sustainable.
The country is a long way from being able to eradicate possums, Warburton says, and as a resource it had a real value to the economy.
‘‘There is an industry of $100m-$150m a year based on it,’’ he says. ‘‘That’s good while it continues.’’
One of the industry’s champions is Sue Boot from Basically Bush. The business is responsible for harvesting the lion’s share of the roughly 1.2 million possums taken every year, from a total population estimated to be somewhere between 30 and 70 million.
Basically Bush’s company motto is ‘‘promoting balance within our environment’’.
Boot, a former nurse, says the industry gets no credit for its part in managing the possum population. ‘‘Last year we purchased 53 tonnes of possum fibre, which is taken off the warm carcass,’’ she says.
‘‘We are doing the country a favour.’’
As well as providing possum fibre to yarn makers like Wool Yarns, Basically Bush has the Untamed brand of luxury possum fur cushions, blankets and bedspreads, the largest of which can cost over $6000. It also produces possum leather at its Bay of Plenty tannery.
Mackie, from Wool Yarns, says: ‘‘What we see is an opportunity for New Zealand Inc to create jobs, particularly in low socio-economic areas like Northland and Bay of Plenty.’’
It’s an opportunity unique to New Zealand as the possum population is designated as a destructive species.