Australian ecologists advise protecting gardens from possums with nets — ABC News Australia
In Australia, ecologists advise protecting vegetable plots and gardens from possums with physical barriers: fine-mesh nets, protective fruit bags, garden-bed cages and trunk guards. As ABC News Australia reports, these measures can protect crops while causing no harm to animals.
Safe barriers for crops
University of Melbourne urban ecologist Kylie Soanes called creating a physical barrier the most effective way to deter possums from a garden. She stressed that the netting must be safe for wildlife, as animals can become entangled in ordinary fruit netting.
Green Adelaide ecologist Jason van Weenen noted that suburbs provide possums with stable food sources even during dry periods. Fences, roofs and power lines also enable them to quickly hide from predators. For properties with several trees, he advised leaving space between canopies so that animals cannot easily move from tree to tree.
Methods that are not recommended
Sydney gardener Margaret Mossakowska said that nets and cages produced the best results in her garden, while bird decoys did not work. She also harvests fruit before it is fully ripe if it can ripen indoors.
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According to Soanes, devices that emit buzzing or sound signals may work only at first: animals quickly become accustomed to them if the signal is not associated with real danger. University of Sydney Professor Catherine Herbert added that the effectiveness of products intended to deter possums by smell or taste has not been sufficiently confirmed.
Protected native animals
Herbert stressed that native possum species in Australia are protected by state and territory legislation: they may not be killed, harmed or relocated. She also does not recommend feeding the animals vegetables or fruit, as several possums near a single feeding site may fight, while concentrations of animals increase the risk of disease spread.
Common brushtail possums have adapted well to urban environments and occur in all Australian capitals. At the same time, their numbers are declining in the country’s arid and semi-arid regions, and they face local extinction in Central Australia and the Western Australian wheatbelt.
