For more than seven years, the Otago Peninsula Biodiversity Group has been trapping and killing possums on the peninsula, removing about 15,000 in that time.
Group project manager Ursula Ellenberg said it was worried possums could ‘‘reinvade’’ through Waverley and Shiel Hill.
‘‘We are slowly winning. There are still some out there but we have removed a lot and now we’re targeting the final hot-spot on the peninsula.’’
The group is expanding its community trapping programme into the suburbs and a backyard trapping workshop for Waverley property owners was held at the weekend as part of the Wild Dunedin Festival.
Already about 30 landowners in the suburbs had joined the programme, she said.
‘‘That’s where the possums come back on to the Otago Peninsula and we need the local community in those more urban areas to help stop those possums invading the peninsula.’’
The group subsidises — through a Kiwibank Predator Free Community grant — traps which can be placed in backyards.
However, the grant does not subsidise timms traps.
‘‘Lots of people are part of the programme for different reasons but they all have that mission to get rid of possums.’’
The group had a goal of making the peninsula possum-free within the next five years, she said.
