Comments on: The Ultimate Pest-buster?

By: Mandy

Mandy — Wed, 22 Jul 2009 01:18:40 +0000

Here’s a link to a video that explains how modified worms can be used to affect the fertility of possums -

By: Sue

Sue — Tue, 21 Jul 2009 03:27:59 +0000

How things stay the same! I wrote on this subject over 20 years ago in The Veterinarian. My conclusion then was that with budget limitations, the very real risk of vectors undergoing genetic drift over decades that the safest and cheapest way to limit possum breeding would be to install possum-sized condom vending machines in the bush. That though was configured into a cartoon and displayed in DoC offices for a few years.

Mind you, removal of other mammal species by accidentally sterilising everything would help reduce environmental threats from human overpopulation.

By: Mandy

Mandy — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 02:32:55 +0000

I don’t know much about vectors, but I imagine they can be introduced in a range of ways.

A few years back they did a field trial in Kahurangi National Park of a gut worm that was introduced into the possum population down there. The trial was very successful, and the gut worm spread rapidly throughout the population. What scientists would need to do next though, is genetically modify the gut worm so that it is fatal to possums. A hard task given the public opposition to genetic modification

By: Anne

Anne — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:55:49 +0000

Do you have any idea how the vectors are administered? Is it by way of feeding them with laced goodies? Or by releasing surgically-modified (or injected) hosts into the population to breed with the innocent/ignorant wild ones?