The Against Animal Cruelty Tasmania, Wildlife Tasmania and Tasmanian Conservation Trust today voiced their collective opposition to the planned export of brushtail possums from Tasmania. The groups said the proposal to export around 100,000 brushtail possums from Tasmania will lead to a massive increase in animal suffering, an increased burden on animal carers and will fail to deliver the benefits to farmers and forestry companies claimed by the State Government.
The Tasmanian Government referred the ‘Draft Management Plan for the Commercial Harvest and Export of Brushtail Possums 2010-2014’ to the Australian Government in March 2010 for assessment under the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act. It proposes quotas for taking and exporting up to 104,125 brush-tailed possums per year. The public comment period closed on 23 April 2010. The State Government’s ‘Animal Welfare Guidelines – Code of Practice for the Capture, Handling, Transport and Slaughter of Brush-tail Possums’ will apply to any operator seeking to take possums for export.
Increased suffering
“Under the proposed export Management Plan, possums will not be shot in the field, but will be trapped alive and transported long distances before they are slaughtered”, said AACT Spokesperson Chris Simcox.
“A Code of Practice exists but no Code can stop these naturally shy, nocturnal wild animals suffering from deprivation of food and water during up to 48 hours of captivity, extremes of temperature, strange noises and exposure to bright lights.
“AACT and its supporters are completely against any commercial use of wild animals. It is never warranted and denies the worth of individual animals and their place in nature. The Tasmanian and Australian governments need to be told there should be no commercial possum industry in this state.”
During the public comment period on the Draft Management Plan, AACT had 400 people in one week join its Facebook page dedicated to protecting brushtail possums from commercial exploitation. This has now risen to well over 600 people.
“People are very passionate about saving brushtail possums from the fate of being put on the menu in Asian countries or made into clothes,” continued Mr Simcox.
Linked to the Facebook page is footage taken of possums being killed in the purpose-built abattoir when it was in operation in 2004.
“The images, showing possums having their throats cut whilst still struggling and conscious and young being bashed to death against a trough, are enough to turn the stomach of even the most hard-hearted person,” concluded Mr Simcox.
Increased burden on animal carers
Perhaps the worst aspect of having a possum export industry is that thousands of young possum joeys will be taken from their mothers and either killed by hunters if very young or given to animal carers in the vain hope they can be rescued.
“Wildlife carers are sick of shooters and trappers expecting them to care for joeys that have been taken from their mothers,” said Peter Power of Wildlife Tasmania (a network of wildlife carers). “Each animal costs about $250 a year to rehabilitate and the costs are borne by each volunteer carer as there is no form of funding to assist them”.
“People who earn money out of killing adult possums should be made to contribute to the full costs of rehabilitating orphaned joeys that they pass onto wildlife carers. Even then there are not enough wildlife carers in the state to handle the amount of joeys that would be forced into their care,” Peter Power concluded.
No gain for primary producers
“The State Government is attempting an enormous con job by claiming that exporting possums will prevent the current wastage of culled possums and provide a service to farmers and forestry companies by reducing damage to crops and plantations,” said TCT Director Peter McGlone.
“The management plan states that ‘the commercial industry will expand under this management plan and the non-commerical take decrease accordingly’ (page 34) but provides no evidences to substantiate the claim.
“This is just a crude attempt to make killing possums for profit seem more acceptable. The truth is that wallabies are a far bigger problem for farmers and it is unlikely that exporters will target areas where forestry companies are establishing plantations.
“If export is allowed, we will see an enormous increase in the numbers of possums killed in Tasmania with little or no reduction in the amount of culling done by forestry companies and farmers.
“The State Government should be encouraging farmers and foresters to use non-lethal alternatives to control browsing animals such as subsidising fencing and supporting development of browsing resistant seedlings,” concluded Mr McGlone.
The TCT opposes the Draft Management Plan but if the Australian Government fails to refuse the plan, we recommend it be amended to:
– require the animal welfare code to be strengthened through a thorough public review;
– require exporters to pay the full cost of monitoring possum populations and administering the export management plan;
– state that the true goal of the plan is to facilitate a new commercial enterprise based on killing possums and that no evidence exists to show that the current levels of non-commercial culling will be reduced.
John
May 3, 2010 at 19:42
Our Australian animals have suffered so much and now this! Humans are an abomination!
Ian Rist
May 3, 2010 at 20:34
So Mr Simcox and Mr McGlone you are quiet happy to ignore the 1080 poisoning and the proposed cyanide poisoning of possums?
Surely if possums must be controlled any thinking person would rather see possums used for food rather than left to rot and cause secondary 1080 poisoning of the very species you phonies claim to protect.
This is why you people are a very small minority regarded by most people as extremely radical.
Jon Sumby
May 3, 2010 at 23:13
This is morally and ethically disgusting, up there with the live sheep trade. Perhaps the Govt seeing the end of old growth logging wants to start a new industry? Tassie – the possum state?
john hayward
May 3, 2010 at 23:34
There is little empirical evidence that we can manage a sustainable harvest of any other creature. H. Sapiens is a large and voracious omnivore whose numbers have exploded, doubling in less than the past fifty years alone to a figure now approaching 7bn.
We are now exploiting krill, a foundation of the marine food chain, and are moving into jellyfish. It’s clear we can’t get away with it for much longer.
If an industry is sufficiently stupid and rapacious, however, you can be confident Tassie will be baying on the trail.
John Hayward
Having seen the ABC expose of the Tassie possum industry a few years ago, and observed the performance of the Tasmanian Health Dept on a number of public health issues, and seen the State Government at odds with the world on wildlife poisoning, duck shooting, and numerous other fundamental conservation issues, does anyone in their right mind think that we can trust our political establishment to “harvest” possums humanely and sustainably? Have a look on the role of brushtail possums in the Tasmanian environment. What did you find?
John Hayward
Ian Rist
May 4, 2010 at 00:16
I find it strange that not one person has commented on the fact that up to 100,000 animals are subjected to the the most horrific death from 1080 in Tasmania alone each year…do you all find this acceptable?
William Boeder
May 4, 2010 at 01:48
#6 Ian, it is a given that all of the conservation-minded and more sensibly humane-minded persons are concerned at the toll that 1080 has taken, (and continuing to do so.)
Just as this feeble-minded State Labor government has become happily oblivious to all the supported harms of the forestry industry generally, this does not quite warrant the question to the people of ‘do we all find this acceptable?’
This State has such an extraordinary number of deficient aspects occurring simultaneously toward and within our environment, these deficient aspects arrive with such an abrasive monotonous frequency, that the ‘obvious’ in us can at times become ‘numbed’ to the toll of the many warning bells.
Shirley Glen of West Tamar
May 4, 2010 at 04:10
#6 No, Ian, I don’t find the 1080 deaths acceptable, I wonder when it will stop as was promised.
As for the possum trade, I have been a wildlife carer and was made aware of what was going on in that abbatoir in 2004. The possums weren’t shot in the bush because the Chinese wanted their Tasmanian Tree Fox, as it was marketed, with the skin on and fur off, like pork. So the fur boils off easier if the carcass is still fresh and warm.
They said the possums didn’t fight, just sat in their cages staring quietly while they were killed. Just what a traumatised and light blinded nocturnal animal would do, I think.
Jon Ayling.
May 4, 2010 at 11:31
Having just read the Draft Management Plan it became clear that the Tasmanian government’s publically promoted goal of ending 1080 usage by 2015 is only to be replaced by commercial enterprise. The hope is that the public will be comforted by the idea that if the possums have to be killed in order to protect crops and plantations, then its a positive thing to use (sell) the meat and skins instead of wasting them. In other words, out goes one form of evil and in comes another.
I can’t help wondering, if it were possible to calculate the costs involved in scientific studies on pest management and public servants massive ongoing salaries reflected in organisations such as DPIPWE over the last 30 odd years, whether the total expenses incurred would be anywhere near the cost of mandatory suitable pest proof fencing for primary producers?
One thing is certain, as a species, we seem to have few qualms about allowing suffering to occur to those without any defence.
Pete Godfrey
May 4, 2010 at 12:26
I am against the killing of possums for meat or any other purpose. Ian I am also appalled by the use of 1080 on any animal as well.
I am aware that farmers have big problems with native browsing animals and think that killing them is the only way to control them. Of course this does not work it only reduces their numbers for a short while.
Humans have created the problem by increasing the areas under pasture and crops. It is up to us to fence the animals out of our crops.
I think it is time for a government run scheme to boundary fence all viable farms against browsing animals. Of course there would have to be oversight of this so that non farmers don’t cash in on the fencing plan.
John Dudley
May 4, 2010 at 12:33
A very similar rationale exists to justify the mass ‘harvest’of Tasmanian tree ferns for export.
We are lead to believe that we are facilitating a more rational use of the whole forest resource thus reducing waste.
Better that we should examine the manner by which we ‘manage’our forests and by which we establish new plantations to eliminate the horrendous slaughter of native animals and the destruction of fern communities.
salamander
May 4, 2010 at 12:54
This is just another in the long list of abominations perpetrated by government in the interests of the few. We object to the use of 1080, we object to live export, we object to whaling, but for what?
It seems, just for the added stress on our private lives and personal budget.
Chris Simcox
May 4, 2010 at 13:27
I am horrified by the use of 1080, Feratox (cyanide), or any other poison, shooting, trapping and any means to kill Tasmanian wildlife. To discuss the cruelty of exporting Brushtail Possums is not to ignore all the other nastiness towards wildlife done in the name of ‘management’, or worse still, ‘pest managment’. Humans are the Real Pest Animal, not just in Tasmania, but the world over.
I am equally alarmed by the Central Coast Council’s planned poisoning of Galahs with Alphachloralose in Ulverstone. I am similarly concerned about the lack of foresight in recommending to replace 1080 with yet another poison – cyanide in the shape of Feratox.
When humans finally realise they are sharing the landscape with others who have an equal right to inhabit the land, we might start making some progress. While this ‘kill anything that so much as thinks it might compete with me and my livelihood’ mentality prevails, we are doomed as a species.
Ian Rist
May 4, 2010 at 13:45
Pete # 10 I agree totally humans have caused the problem with land clearing and more pasture and crops… but the biggest problem is the mosaic of pasture and plantations.
Don’t get me wrong possums have as much right to live as anything else, it’s just that if they must be culled surely using the meat and skins is much more sensible than poisoning them or shooting them and leaving them to rot?
I have opposed 1080 baiting in this state for as long as I can remember having seen the results of this terrible poison many times. Politicians of all sorts have made promises on 1080 but never have kept them.
One of the biggest con jobs I have ever seen in Tasmania is the 1080 fox baiting…The Greens and others were sucked in big time, hard dried kangaroo meat baits NOT DANGEROUS TO NATIVE CARNIVORES BECAUSE THEY WOULDN’T BE ABLE TO CHEW THEM???? Absolute con…why and when have they changed over to the soft Foxoff baits and have absolutely saturated plantations and public lands with Foxoff?
It would appear the fear of foxes will guarantee the continuance of 1080 forever.
Mark Wybourne
May 4, 2010 at 14:11
What’s the drama with utilising a renewable resource? Just because it is one of our native animals shouldn’t make it a no-no. There is too much emtion in this sort of issue, instead of practicality.
john hayward
May 4, 2010 at 18:31
There is little doubt that the subsidised use of 1080 would cease if the logging industry’s control of the state government did. So would the use of Feratox.
The fact that the elimination of these noxious practices would probably cause grief to the woodchip spin squad shouldn’t make it a no-no. If you aren’t emotional about the despoliation of the Tasmanian land, water and air, it seems childish to get sentimental about (them).
John Hayward
Chris Simcox
May 4, 2010 at 18:50
Yes you are right Mark (#15), there is too much emotion in this issue. With humans being the real pest animal, and a ‘renewable resource’ as you would have it, why not cull a few of them, and use the meat if you so desire? I guess there wouldn’t be much to be gained from trying to use the skins however…. I think I’ll stick to eating plants.