Pests not pets – Greater Wellington calls for community to support pest management

Conservation experts are concerned about reports of pest species, including possums, being kept as pets in the Wellington region, endangering the biodiversity that councils and communities are working hard to preserve.

Greater Wellington’s Regional Pest Management Plan (RPMP) provides the strategic direction for managing pest plants and animals in the region for the next 20 years. It is a connected approach to protecting key native ecosystems in the region and plans for collaboration with other organisations and communities for a better future.

The regional council is aware of small numbers of people who are taking possums into their homes and keeping them as pets, says Greater Wellington’s manager of environment operations Myfanwy Hill.

“Possums pose a serious threat to native birds and plants. No one in the community should consider them pets. Domesticated possums may escape and destroy wildlife and keeping them undermines our broader conservation efforts,” says Hill. 

“We work hard to ensure native flora and fauna can thrive and be protected from pests such as possums. When they are kept as pets it puts the health of our eco-systems seriously at risk.”

Predator Free Wellington has been hugely successful in recent years, eliminating pests from the Miramar Peninsula and is making substantial progress in the next phase of its work, moving westward into the city.

Predator Free Wellington Project Director James Willcocks says communities have been integral to the success which should not be undone by a handful of people trying to make pets out of pests.

“People keeping possums as pets could deal a major blow to the hard work of so many in our communities over decades,” says Willcocks. 

“Possums damage our trees, eat birds' eggs and can spread tuberculosis. With Greater Wellington we’ve made great strides, removing possums from our region, so we ask that people look at the bigger picture, instead of trying to domesticate pests.”

Sightings of rats, stoats, weasels or possums in Miramar, Kilbirnie, Lyall Bay, Rongotai, Hataitai or Mt Victoria can be reported to Predator Free Wellington.

For more information, see the Regional Pest Management Plan (PDF 11 MB) .