So in broad daylight nothing excited him more than to be invited to a possum hunt with his master and mates. One morning the boss’s son-in-law and mate came along for a three-day hunt with Jock running ahead of the vehicle for an hour or so until they entered a patch of native bush. Here he discovered a huge, black, female possum catching a few zzzs in the forks of a tall tree.
He barked ferociously to tell his master about his find then sat down to wait. The marksman’s careful aim was true and the boss started his climb to recover the much sought after black pelt. As a last dying act of revenge the possum emptied her bowels and bled all over him. But he was determined not to lose the body as the pelt, once dried, was worth $35.
Back on the ground he realised his clothes were those he had to wear for the next three days so he was relegated to the old metal tractor seat attached to the back of the series one Land Rover for the rest of the trip.
Today the demand for possum products is amazing. I had three United Kingdom students staying with me recently. They had already visited White Island, been surfing, speared a flounder and taken a microlight flight so I was getting quite desperate as to how I could entertain them.
Then I remembered a friend across the road loved spotlighting possums. They came home jubilant with six possums, which gave them enough money from the fur to fill the car with petrol.
Not only had they reduced the possum population by six, they actually reckoned it was the highlight of their holiday.
The baby possums called joeys were quite popular as children’s pets with one local telling me how theirs would snuggle up in bed with them on a wet Saturday morning.
Another local used to take his pet joey to the movies where it would eat ice cream.
One lady skinned the more mature joeys and lined their gut cavities with bacon and bread stuffing then baked them to be eaten cold. She said they tasted like free-range chicken and the kids loved them. Research findings show possum meat has unusually high levels of Omega 3 and 6.
In the last year the eastern Bay of Plenty possum population has been hit hard as there are plenty of local buyers for whole possums with the fur on, green or dried skins or just the plucked fur.
When mixed with Merino wool the resulting fibre knits into an incredibly warm garment. I am the proud owner of a beanie, gloves, socks, jersey and cardigan all made out of possum Merino.
Rower Mahe Drysdale wears a possum back belt to give him support while golfer Lydia Ko uses gloves made from the tanned hide which feels like silk to touch but has the stretch and flexibility of lycra.
All this was a bit much for me to take in so I went to see Bruce Dawson and Robert Lass of Dawson Furs in Whakatane. They have a staff of nine and I almost landed a job as telephonist as the phones rang continuously while I was there.
One guy was stretching green possum skins onto a nailed frame and another stuffing dried skins into a wool fadge.
Each fadge holds 1000 pelts, and they had 10 waiting to go to China. They buy one tonne of fur and about 2000 pelts a week.
I found it interesting that different areas of the country breed different coloured fur. Here in the Bay it’s silver/grey although black is the most prized and around once a month an albino skin comes in.
Bruce said he was turning a resource into a useful product. Seeing a need for pet food, he started buying in whole possum bodies and making a minced pet food frozen into cubes. Recently they launched dried pet food pellets, mainly for dogs, which are a mixture of finely ground possum carcasses, vitamins and nutrients.
The gleaming coat of Angel, the firm’s pet fox terrier, was testament to its health benefits.
