Possums Scapegoat for Tb Testing Inefficiencies

Possums Scapegoat for Tb Testing Inefficiencies

Possums have been scapegoats for Tb testing inefficiencies by TbFreeNZ and Ospri says a West Coast dairy farmer.

Mary Molloy of Hari Hari who has formed a lobby Farmers Against Ten Eighty (FATE) said the regime run by the former Animal Health Board agencies in TBFree and Ospri of blaming possums for Tb outbreaks and then spreading 1080 poison was "flawed, ill-conceived, failed and ecologically destructive.”

She praised NZ First MP Richard Prosser for recently exposing in Parliamentary debate that Tb-infected possums exist at low, insignificant rates of 0.04 percent. He deserved praise for putting into the public arena the wasteful and incompetent policies and administration around Tb.

“The current Tb testing which gives rise to undetected infectious bovine Tb and ‘sleeper animals’ gives no confidence to farmers,” she said.

Under the current regime, Tb in herds or bought-in stock, escapes testing at a rate of nearly 30 percent and was falsely identified at nearly 30 percent also.

“Perfectly healthy young stock are killed most years and found to have no Tb, but leaving undetected and infectious animals in farm herds. On top of that grossly inefficient system, the authorities by specious reasoning with science lacking, then turn to 1080 poison as the solution.”

Mary Molloy said it was easy to erroneously make the connection to possums if an infected marsupial was found but said in line with Richard Prosser’s revealing of 0.04 percent infection, it was negligible and insignificant.

“The reality is possums are not infected, almost everywhere. Remember what came first and what maintains any TB in the wild is inherently farmed cattle and deer with undetected infectious bovine (cattle) Tb.”

Mary Molloy called for a new culture under Ospri and TbFree where farm strategies would be shared with all farmers especially those who buy in infected stock or have a herd which in the absence of Tb-infected possums, appears to breakdown regularly.

“We need strategies for lessening stress on animals to remove the likelihood of Tb break-down on farms,” she said.

ENDS

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