Urban Possum: Friend or Foe?

Brush-tailed possums are now common in Australian urban areas and researchers are looking at whether they could be spreading diseases to humans and livestock.

Brush-tailed possums used to be a common site in the Australian bush. Recently, their populations in the wild have been declining and many are now found in urban areas, showing a remarkable ability to adapt to city life and breed successfully. But for many humans who live close to the possums, they are not the cute and cuddly creatures they appear to be.  Rather, they prove to be destructive pests who damage property, trees and vegetable patches. Even more troubling are the claims that possums are spreading disease to humans and livestock. Are possums in fact transmitting diseases to other species?

Credit: Peter Firminger

Populations of brush-tailed possums are declining in the Australian bush but many have moved to urban areas.

Disease carriers?

At Macquarie University, in Sydney, Australia, doctoral student Nichola Hill and a team of researchers in the department of marsupial immunology are investigating whether brush-tailed possums could be carrying zoonotic pathogens - disease producing agents that are infectious to both animals and humans.  They are studying possums living in the grounds of Sydney’s Taronga Zoo and are  screening the possums for a range of these pathogens. There are growing concerns that the increasing urbanisation of wild habitats may facilitate the exchange of diseases between humans and the wildlife that live near urban boundaries.

On four days out of every month, the researchers trap several of the zoo’s 150-180 resident possums. They are scanned to see if they have already been microchipped, and thus previously examined, and faecal samples are collected at the site for later analysis.