The brushtail possum is an invasive species

It looks harmless but New Zealand has declared war on this little marsupial. Here is the brushtail possum.

Transcript

00:00In New Zealand the only mammals we have present are those that could fly such as bats or swim

00:25such as seals and dolphins.

00:28So when humans arrived they brought these terrestrial mammals that walk on four legs

00:33and hunt by smell and that was something very new to our birds which we're used to being

00:37hunted by sight.

00:58If you look right up in the head of that basin there's a few dead trees up in there and that's

01:09all from overgrazing from the potholes.

01:39There's been a level of enthusiasm for getting rid of these unwanted predators at a community

02:08level for probably about the last 20 or 30 years.

02:12By the Crown taking leadership and providing a vision with a date it's enabled communities

02:17who've kind of potted along doing their own thing to look at really joining forces and

02:22making sure that they can combine with other neighbourhoods and other communities, get

02:28funding for traps, for poisons where they feel it's appropriate.

02:38Because the weather's so so nasty today we'll grab these ones, take them home and pluck

02:58them in the shed.