[Teacher Zhang talks about education]The past and present of the bag mink: From fur to environmental protection, let’s talk about New Zealand’s ecological nightmare!

Chinese pioneer columnist Mr. Zhang (Zhang Yunteng)

From the “fur dream” embraced by colonists in the 19th century to the “ecological nightmare” in the 21st century, the story of Bagmian reminds us that once foreign invasive species are overpropagated and become unbalanced, the price paid will need to be compensated by generations of efforts. This may be a battle without an end, and it also reflects the struggle of mankind to find a balance between “extinction” and “use”.

The protagonist of this story is Possum. Its correct Chinese name is “bag mink”. Please don’t call it “cive”!

PossumIt is a marsupial among mammals！

It is often seen that New Zealand’s telephone poles or park trunks are wrapped in a piece of silver-white iron sheet, which is to prevent Possum from crawling over. Auckland’s power supply facilities were once bitten by animals and caused a major power outage, and the telephone line at home might also be bitten off. The animals that were crushed to death on the road are common, which tell the story of Possum. Many Chinese friends mistakenly call Possum “civet”, and the older Kiwi also called them Opossum, and in Maori it was called Paihamu, which is a transliteration of Possum in English, and some Chinese media called it “opssum”.

Of all animals, only mammals can produce real milk to feed young children. Existing mammals are divided into three categories: egg-borne, pampered pouches (marsupials), and standard viviparous plastids. The only remaining egg-born mammals are platypus and echidnas that live in Australia; mammals with parenting bags are the most famous for Australian kangaroos and koalas (kowels). Most mammals belong to the standard viviparous species. The placenta of marsupials is not well developed and cannot allow the fetus to develop until it is mature and reborn. The parenting bag on the mother’s abdomen becomes a temporary shelter for premature babies.

In terms of species classification, papillar belongs to the Marsupialia, Australian marsupialia, Diprotodontia, and Phalangeridae. The most common Brushtail Possum in New Zealand belongs to the genus Trichosurus (Trichsurus), and its scientific name is Trichosurus vulpecula. The relationship between kangaroo, koala and sack mink is “the same order and different families”.

In terms of appearance, pouch marten is about the same size as a cat, with an average weight of 2 to 3 kilograms. The breed, size and fur color of pouch marten in different regions varies greatly, and males are generally stronger than females. Its appearance characteristics are as follows: 1. Small head, pointed nose and oval ears; 2. Big eyes with the same beard as a cat, typical nocturnal characteristics; 3. Thick and velvety fur, ranging from brown, silver-gray, black to cream; 4. A long and fluffy black tail; 5. Dark secretory glands (thymic plaques) on the chest.

The female bag marten gave birth to a small bag marten after 18 days of pregnancy. The small bag marten used her forelimbs to crawl into the parenting bag on her abdomen, stayed for four to five months, left the parenting bag and crawled on her back for two months before she started living independently. Bag minks usually achieve sexual maturity at 1 to 2 years old, with an average lifespan of about 7 to 10 years.

Bag minks are nocturnal marsupials native to Australia and New Guinea. Most of them live in trees and are mainly distributed in forest areas such as alpine forests, Eucalyptus forests and tropical jungles. There are as many as 23 types of Possum in Australia. Because it has natural enemies such as Australian wild dogs, and Australian plants are either poisonous or thorny, they cannot be enjoyed with marten. In addition, frequent dwarf wildfires in the wild in Australia have caused less food, and their number is naturally controlled, which has become a conservation animal in Australia.

There are “cive civets” in South China, and there are white-nosed cats and white-nosed hearts in Taiwan. They have a white band from the end of the nose to the forehead, which belongs to the standard viviparous mammals. The fetus of civets develops until it matures in the maternal uterus. Unlike the premature birth of pouches, civets and pouches are completely different species. The two have great differences in animal classification, and it is a big mistake to call Possum a civet!

Bamboo marten is a foodie and the culprit of New Zealand’s ecological catastrophe.

The Christmas tree in New Zealand, Pohutukawa, is an evergreen tree that blooms all year round, with red flowers blooming around Christmas. Occasionally, I see only dead branches left in the whole tree. This is the masterpiece of marten. Many other plants such as bell flower, Toro, Rata, Kohekohe, etc. are also their favorites. Bag minks are omnivorous and have a wide variety of food, including leaves, flowers, buds, fruits, mushrooms, and sweeter tissues under the bark. Even small insects, small mammals, chicks, bird eggs, etc. are not spared. The bird eggs of the sheep pecking parrot (Kea) and Kiwi birds are rampant.

Bag minks are definitely natural foodies. They have a full meal, and 75% of the food comes from six plants, which fully takes into account the balance of nutrition. It is difficult for us to find which animal has more diverse and more complex food than Bag minks. The way of feeding bag minks is particularly troubled and worried about ecologists. They are used to returning to the same plant every night to eat until they can finish eating. This way of eating will never have the chance to recuperate and die. The trees in New Zealand are dying one by one, and the marten may become New Zealand’s “forest terminator”.

If there are 40 to 50 million marten bags in New Zealand, they will eat about 21 million kilograms of plants per day, which is equivalent to a large container ship every day, full of leaves, seedlings, fruits, flowers and forage leaving the coast of New Zealand. In addition to many rare species such as native lizards and the “Tuatara”, known as living fossils, the national bird “Kiwi”, which has less than 70,000 left in New Zealand, is dying at an average decrease of 20 per week, while native birds are disappearing at a rate of 25 million per year.

Bag minks are spread all over New Zealand’s vegetation areas, and traces of Bag minks can be seen in almost 98% of land. What’s more serious is that bag minks are a transmission vector of “bovine tuberculosis” and pose a significant threat to the dairy, beef cattle and deer breeding industries. In 1994, more than 1,700 cattle herds were infected in New Zealand, and by July 2011, it dropped to below 100. Currently, nearly half of New Zealand’s forest land (about 13 million hectares) are undergoing bag mink culling work. Through comprehensive bag mink control, the herd infection rate has been greatly reduced. New Zealand’s “Bovine-free tuberculosis program“It has been internationally hailed as a leading model, saving the livestock industry, one of the lifelines of New Zealand’s economy from the collapse crisis.

To summarize the four major reasons why marten is listed as a pest beast: First, predating eggs and chicks of local endangered birds with cultural value; Second, competing for food, overlapping with local birds and reptiles, and even preying on large insects such as Weta and local terrestrial snails; Third, seriously destroying vegetation, and marten prefers to selectively eat, causing their favorite plants to disappear or decrease, resulting in changes in forest composition and collapse of the canopy; Fourth, threatening agriculture and animal husbandry. In addition to competing for grass with livestock, marten is also a vector of cattle tuberculosis, posing a major risk to the dairy cattle and beef cattle industries, and may even pass the disease to humans.

To investigate the source of this ecological catastrophe, “external species” are the culprits, and of course, bag minks are one of the protagonists. It is estimated that New Zealand will have to spend $3.3 billion a year on issues derived from alien species. After calculating this, there is indeed no place for the marten here.

The blend of marten fur and wool is a warm high-end fashion product. The clothing of the Washington political arena and Hollywood stars in the United States has already appeared in New Zealand marten. Perhaps, developing New Zealand’s bag mink fur industry can transform the “ecological killer” into a “tool for making money”.

Where will they go in the vicissitudes of the immigration history of Bamian?

There were no bags of minks in New Zealand. Around 1837, someone deliberately introduced them from Australia to release them in a wild manner, with the purpose of allowing them to breed in large quantities in the natural environment and then export them to their high-quality fur. Around 1950, everyone was alerted that the number of bag marten had skyrocketed to out of control. In the absence of natural enemies, the natural ecology was facing an unprecedented catastrophe. In 1980, the number of bag minks in New Zealand rose to a peak of 70 million. At that time, it was estimated that 1 to 1.5 pieces per 10,000 square meters in Australia was already a very high density, while the density per 10,000 square meters in New Zealand’s forests was as high as 10-30 pieces, 10-20 times that of Australia.

New Zealand was forced to adopt the largest bag-mill culling campaign in history. Some people even made a living by culling bag-mill culling. A sharpshooter man shot more than 700 bag-mill culling overnight. This record was recorded in the American National Geographic Magazine, and no one can break it yet.

In order to declare war on marten, the Ministry of Conservation, the Ministry of Primary Industry, the New Zealand tuberculosis prevention and control unit and the regional parliament jointly formed an inter-ministerial organization, the full name is The National Possum Control Agency (NPCA). After nearly 20 years of long-term war of resistance, by 2010, the number of marten in New Zealand finally dropped to about 30 million, and it is estimated that it is roughly maintained at this number.

In order to kill the marten, the New Zealanders used up various methods such as catchers, cyanide, and poison bait on the ground. “Sodium Fluoroacetate (1080)” was used to spray large areas in the air in remote areas. Although the effect is significant, it occasionally causes the death of local birds, cats and dogs, causing opposition from environmental and animal welfare groups. In order to advocate the elimination of bag marten, some New Zealand schools held the “Possum Tossing Competition”. In 2010, SPCA criticized this activity as not illegal, but was an act that lacked morality.

On July 25, 2016, former Prime Minister of New Zealand, Mr. John Key announced that the time for mass extinction has come! According to Predator Free 2050’s plan, New Zealand will eradicate major invading predators such as rats, marten and ferrets (Stoat) by 2050. The results of several pilot projects have begun to show initial results, and the number of native birds is showing an upward trend. “Even a mouse can’t stay!” John Key said.

Bamian originally thought he had found eternal paradise in New Zealand, but he didn’t expect to embark on such a bumpy immigration road. The marten has a fox-like face, big, deep eyes, oval ears, long tail with thick brush-like hairs, and looks innocent and cute. Some people say they are the South Pacific version of the Teddy Bear.

The Ministry of Conservation of New Zealand (DOC) said: “The marten is one of the greatest threats to the natural environment of New Zealand!” Faced with a killing, the innocent eyes of the marten seemed to tell: “How happy our compatriots in Australia are! They are protected by the country. It is not our fault to come to New Zealand! Please let us live!” A sigh! Why do humans keep repeating the mistake of “there is today, why bother to be the first”?

[ThisarticleisthelatestrevisedversionoriginallypublishedintheJapanesecolumnonApril162020】

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Author introduction:

Teacher Zhang (Zhang Yunteng)

Graduated from the Department of Biology, Taiwan Normal University. I have been moving to New Zealand for 27 years, written the education column of this newspaper for 14 years, and hosted the AM936 radio program “Excellence is Teached” for 16 years. Teacher Zhang continues to pay attention to the general trend of global education and has conducted in-depth research on students’ learning and growth, study abroad and other issues. In 2001, the “Auckland Education Center” was founded, covering after-school tutoring, educational consultation, study abroad application, etc. Many students have successfully entered prestigious universities such as Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford, Oxford, and Cambridge. Many students stood out in the fiercest medical school admission competition in New Zealand and Australia. Teacher Zhang has published books such as “The Lively Education in New Zealand” and “The Lotus Bo Guang”, and is also the original contributor of the neuro and endocrine physiology entries in the “Zhang’s Psychological Dictionary”.

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