Independent scientific reviews

and official documents on 1080

There is a low prevalence of Tb in possums

2016	Nugent, G.	Kararehe Kino 27:16-17	The main host of TB is … possum!	“Necropsy data is very largely collected in ‘freedom’ surveys conducted in areas in which possums have long been controlled to very low densities, to confirm that there is a high probability TB has been locally eliminated from possums. By definition, such freedom surveys are not conducted in areas where TB is known or suspected to occur in the possum population. Thus, finding very few infected possums is a measure of the substantial success of the TB control strategy, not of the insignificance of possums as host of TB.
2002	Nugent, G., Whitford, J. & Young, N.	Journal of Wildlife Diseases 38(4): 665-677	Use of Released Pigs as Sentinels for Mycobacterium Bovis	Prevalence of TB in possum populations is also usually low, with infection highly aggregated in small areas or ‘hot spots’ of infection within the overall range…This low and extremely aggregated occurrence of disease combined with the small home range sizes means almost all of the possums in an area would have to be surveyed to be 95% confident that Tb was not present.”
2000	Coleman, J., Caley, P.	pp 92-104. In Montague, T.L. (Ed.) The Brushtail Possum. Biology, impact and management if an introduced marsupial. Montague, T.L. (Ed.) Manaaki Whenua Press, Lincoln, New Zealand. 292 pp.	Possums as a reservoir of bovine Tb	“The low prevalence of macroscopically lesioned possums identified during most extensive surveys is postulated to be caused by the rapid progression and subsequent death of possums after the disease becomes visually detectable (Morris & Pfeiffer 1995). However, time to death after developing clinical Tb is variable-although Jackson (1995) estimated the subsequent mean time to death to be 6 months, possums with readily identifiable lesions have been known to survive for several years (Lugton 1977). Indeed, Lugton (1997) argued strongly that the disease runs a prolonged course, with median survival time after infection in excess of 3 years.”
2015	Livingstone, P.G., Hancox, N., Nugent, G. & de Lisle, G.W.	NZ Veterinary Journal 63 (Supp 1):4-18	Toward eradication: the effect of Mycobacterium bovis infection in wildlife on the evolution and future direction of bovine tuberculosis management in New Zealand	“The overall patchiness and low prevalence of disease means that it is often difficult to detect TB in possum populations through surveys.”
2014	Nugent, G. & Livingstone, P.	Kararehe Kino 23:Feb	Dispersal of a non-motile species: the story of bovine TB’s spread in New Zealand	“…TB in possums was not recorded until 1967. This is unexpected given that possums had lived alongside infected cattle for nearly a century.”