★Animals in NZ★ ～Opossums～

Have you ever seen opossums? There are a lot of animals in New Zealand although almost are birds, so I am going to tell you about a rare animal, opossums.

In Japan, there are few opossums so you may not understand the opossums. Opossums are very cute as you see, but they are disliked by man though they look lovely. In 1837, the opossums were brought from Australia to make goods by opossum's bristles, but they had increased for a long time, and it damaged the nature of New Zealand. Moreover, the number of opossums doesn't tend to have decreased though the opossums have a bad influence upon people and domesticated animal, and they have been exterminated in 1950. We can also see opossums which were run over by cars.

Now, it is said that there are 17 million opossums in New Zealand. When you go to New Zealand, you may see opossum on the road.