Dr Michael Morris - Animal welfare writer Dr. Michael Morris teaches degree course in Environmental Management at the Bay of Plenty Polytechnic. He is a Tauranga City Council candidate for the Te Papa/Welcome Bay ward.

A recent account of anti-possum rhetoric in New Zealand makes disturbing reading. Possums are accused of being vicious, cunning and devious, and paradoxically as stupid foreign invaders, intent on deliberately devastating our native bush and economy. We are exhorted to show no mercy to these vermin, and anyone who does so is lambasted for being sentimental or even unpatriotic.

In scapegoating possums in this way, people can make themselves feel good about their environmental credentials. But the truth is not so simple and possum-hating 'environmentalists' cannot get their warm fuzzies this easily.

This is not to say that possums do not have an effect on the environment. The destructive tendency of possums has actually been known at least since the 1940s, and scientists and conservationists have been lobbying for funding to control possums, at a time when their numbers were low enough for control to actually have an effect. But funding for possum control only took off after 1976, when it was discovered possums spread tuberculosis. Since extermination for purely mercenary purposes of protecting our dairy industry would be considered distasteful, is it not surprising that the environment was used as a more palatable excuse for our violent tendencies towards the possum. According to the State of the Environment Report for 2007, far more possum control is carried out by the Animal Health Board for economic reasons than for conservation purposes by DOC.

It should also be remembered that it was no marsupial that felled New Zealand's forests. As Geoff Park eloquently describes in Nga Uruora, New Zealand's lowland kahikatea forests once covered huge swathes of countryside, including the entire Horowhenua, Hauraki Plains and the Firth of Thames. Now these areas are simply grassland as far as the eye can see - drenched with pesticides, fertiliser and effluent, polluting all the streams and washing mud into the estuaries. It is quite apparent that intensive farming is more environmentally destructive than possums.

The solution to possum damage is to target control in ecologically sensitive areas, using more humane means of control. One such method is a pepper spray developed by Victoria University in Wellington that can be sprayed on sensitive plants and which deters possums. In the meantime, those who profess concern for the environment should perhaps leave the possum alone, and instead rely less on animal products for their sustenance. It is also important that we as a country promote a more sustainable and animal friendly alternative way to make a living. A reduction in the intensity of dairy farming would mean that bovine tuberculosis could be controlled through restricting cow movements, and lowering the density of dairy herds. A solution that would be better for the welfare of our cows, possums and environment.