The information contained here is part of a brochure put out by the Tasmanian Conservation Trust. For more information, or copies of the leaflet, Telephone: (03) 6234 3552, Fax: (03) 6231 2491 or write to 102 Bathurst Street, Hobart, Tasmania, 7000, Australia.
The Commonwealth Government has allowed the establishment of a possum meat export industry. Only a massive expression of public disgust will stop a quarter of a million Tasmanian Brush-tail Possums being trapped, slaughtered and sent to Asia every year.
Wildlife is not a resource for the export commodity market
Farmers and foresters in Tasmania call them vermin and poison them indiscriminately with 1080 poison because they compete for pasture and eat the foliage of plantation seedlings.
Possums have been hunted in Tasmania since the 1920s for the fur trade. Even Ring-tail Possums were hunted in Tasmania for their fur until their population crashed in the late 1930s. However the fur market has declined in recent years, so a new assault on possums is planned.
The previous Commonwealth Minister for the Environment, Senator Faulkner, approved the creation of a whole new export industry based on the meat of wild-trapped Tasmanian Brush-tail Possums.
The new Federal Government has approved a three year Management Program submitted by the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Service, to allow a Launceston firm to trap, slaughter, process and export a quarter of a million possums a year.
The Tasmanian Government has declared that it will allow market demand to dictate the size of the industry and the number of operators.
There is currently no control over land clearance in Tasmania and the cumulative effect of habitat loss, 1080 poison, road mortality, recreational shooting, crop protection shooting, illegal shooting and dog attack on the Brush-tail Possum population is not really understood.
The 'Code of Practice for Capture, Handling, Transport and Slaughter of Brush Possums (Trichosurus vulpecula)' recommends trapping in wire cage-traps and delivering live possums to the processing works for slaughter and processing to enable the frozen carcasses to be sold to the Asian market 'fur-off, skin-on' for 'crispy-style' cooking.
The Code of Practice prescribes holding cages 25cm x 25cm x 50cm in which animals may be held for up to 48 hours. Trapped animals may be kept in these small boxes for two days on the back of a truck and have food withheld for 12 hours. The practice is barbaric.
What is more, the Code of Practice is not legally enforceable even if anyone die catch trappers neglecting to check their traps for days or if they subject the possums to heat, cold, pain, injury, distress, overholding and crowding in holding cages as they trap wild Brush-tail Possums out in the Tasmanian countryside.
The Code of Practice also recommends killing un-furred pouch young, but suggests furred young can be delivered to wildlife carers. Tens of thousands of babies will be torn out of their pouches after their mothers have been slaughtered.
No wildlife carers in Tasmania have been approached to rear the orphans of the processing works. Carers are unlikely to be enthusiastic about making a major investment of care, time and energy in raising baby possums that are almost certainly destined to end up in the sewers of Taiwan or China.
What you can do:
Write to:
Express your disapproval of his decision to approve the Tasmanian Parks and Wildlife Management Program for the Tasmanian Brush-tail Possum on the grounds that:
For more information please contact: