Possum Research

After tracking possums in Nikau Palm Gully (south of Akaroa township) master’s student Jean-Louise discovered that possums may not travel as far as first thought. Especially if the food is plentiful.

Previous data suggests that male possums hold an average home range of 1.9 ha and females 1.3 ha. The recorded home ranges in this study are even smaller. The averages are 0.61 ha for the females (4 individuals) and 0.90 ha for males (3 individuals).

It means that Pest Free BP need to cover a lot of ground to make sure we are covering all the possum territory in our knockdown efforts!

The circle of the possums in the middle were male & female possums having fun together!

Possum Area (ha) M/F
A 0.37 F
B 0.47 F
C 0.68 F
D 0.75 M
E 0.77 M
F 0.90 F
G 1.19 M

Possum scat degradation trials were done with Emma Feenstra, a post-doctoral researcher with Manaaki Whenua/Landcare Research with the aim of recording how long possum scats remain on Banks Peninsula.

This will help in determining how old possum scats are from their degradation rate and will be expanded to hedgehogs and
feral cat scats on Kaitōrete.