Photo: chill/123RF
It is going to be another five years at least before local authorities in Hawke's Bay pay for professional possum hunters to knock back the pest's population.
Hawke's Bay Regional Council has delayed managing the control programme til 2028 when it considers its Long Term Plan, while it focuses on recovery work after Cyclone Gabrielle.
The move was a result of the Regional Pest Management Plan change voted on in December.
Council biosecurity and biodiversity principal advisor Mark Mitchell said as it was not in a position to implement the transition as soon as it would like, it was asking landowners to keep down the growing numbers of possums in rural areas in the meantime.
"The possum control programme has been in place for 23 years, and thanks to the hard work of farmers and contractors, the possum population has been maintained at very low levels," Mitchell said.
"It's important that landowners continue to undertake possum control annually, as once possums increase in numbers it can be costly to reduce them back down."
Biodiversity Hawke's Bay chair Bruce Wills said possum numbers were on the rise across the region, but nowhere near the "plague-like proportions" seen in previous years.
"For those of us that live on the farm and hear possums still on our roof and up the trees - they're a menace," Wills said.
"They were out of control decades ago, now thankfully it's reasonably rare to see them."
Wills said it was reasonable for the regional council to delay the work, as it had a huge job ahead in its cyclone recovery.
"Numbers are picking up a bit at the moment, which is a worry. There is obviously some concern with this delay, but I can't blame council, they've got plenty of other things to focus on and I think for most of us, some of this devastation from Cyclone Gabrielle, rightly is a priority."
He said most farmers did their part in keeping possum numbers down on their blocks, but not all.
"It is a requirement for landowners to keep possum numbers below a certain percentage, so I think most of us are pretty practised at doing it.
"But it just takes a few that for whatever reason, if they're busy or absentee landowners."
He said possums often ran wild on foreign-owned forestry blocks with little supervision.
"In some of these forestry areas where the owners aren't living on the property so they don't appreciate or understand the local problem, that's where we get the build-up of numbers and I think that was a big driver for council to step in and offered to put the contractor model in place."
Council said it would watch possum numbers closely and work with land occupiers where there were any issues.
Landowners may also be able to access the council's financial discounts on possum bait and bait stations.
