Possum numbers in parts of Southland are so out of control, commercial possum trapper Jason Gerken is planning a contest he has dubbed the "Save the Rata Possum Hunt".
He said he had never seen pest numbers at this level before.
Mr Gerken became aware of the population explosion when working on a regular trapping block.
"I went over to do an area to do couple of small forestry blocks which lead on to a couple of farms and suddenly instead of a 1000 possums, I got 4500."
To knock the numbers back, he came up with the idea of establishing a hunting event similar to Central Otago’s Easter Bunny Shoot.
But this time teams would have the opportunity to earn some serious cash for their efforts.
Each team entry would be assigned a forestry block and charged a $500 entry fee, which would go towards a prize pool split between first, second and third places.
Teams would also be paid $2.50 for each possum skin.
Farmers had been meeting to devise a way of dealing with possum numbers, Mr Gerken said.
"This is a chance to lower the numbers for farmers at no cost to them."
He believed numbers had got out of control since Tb poisoning programmes had stopped in the Owaka region. "So this is an idea that has come together pretty quickly to beat lambing."
The proposed hunt date was from August 5 to 14.
"It’s just trying to get enough numbers to make it viable to run."
It was not like a standard shooting competition, he said.
"It would be shooting and trapping, but if you are going to win this comp, you are going to have to trap. It’s the only way around it.
"To win it, you are going to have to trap them. And to do what the farmers need done, it’s going to have to be at least a week of work on the property."
As a commercial trapper, he had contracts in place for the possum meat and fur, which was used for pet food and clothing respectively, but expected he would need to employ some temporary staff to process the carcasses in time.
By Toni McDonald
