Not what Mary Poppins had in mind

All together now: ’’In every job that must be done there is an element of fun . . .’’

But what when that job is the necessary business of pest reduction?

School fundraisers in the small Bainesse community near Palmerston North have taken her Mary Poppins at her word.

To raise funds for a school bus they’ve hit upon a family competition in which dead possums are ‘‘pimped up’’. And perhaps not in a manner of which Mary Poppins, or Beatrix Potter, would approve.

They’re posed in an array of positions like reclining in a beauty-spa bathrobe with cucumber slices over the eyes, or chilling out with sunglasses, drink in claw and (compounding the general sense of PC offence) a fag protruding from dead jaws.

The community has included this as part of an Easter rabbit shoot, itself a boutique version of the now well-established Central Otago Easter Bunny Hunt.

The blast of guns around Easter does offend the sensibilities of groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (Peta) who rightly call it a massacre.

And there is an element of cruelty to it, readily evoked by the reminders of orphaned young left to die. To which the hunters do have a fairly straightforward reply. What’s a better way?

It’s not likely that Peta will be among the many who are anxiously waiting for the authorised release in New Zealand of the RDHV1 K5 rabbit haemorrhagic disease already approved in Australia.

What might they make of the better-sounding but curiously long-ignored proposal by fatherand-son biologists John night of University of Otago Professor John Knight and his son Rob, of the University of California, for research into a chromosomal solution under which pests like rabbits and stoats would produce only male offspring? That’s an untested idea that has gone pretty much nowhere for more than two decades under Government prioritisations.

Bottom line: there is no feelgood solution to hand. Removing these pests from the land remains an unkind business.

The extra offence that gentler souls detect against Easter bunny hunts and the like is the perception that enjoyment is being taken out of something that, whatever the necessities of the matter may be, has inherent cruelties. Like with duckshooting, pig hunting, deerstalking . . .

Either side may deny it, but this is a matter upon which reasonable people can differ.

And, upon reflection, Mary Poppins need not be consulted. The woman wants us to up our kids’ sugar intake, for goodness’ sake.