A recent trip to the UK to present breakthrough research in possum biocontrol led to an unlikely meeting for AgResearch scientist Dr Gail Shuttleworth.

She visited Pickles – a hapless possum that had spent six weeks trapped in a container full of onions as it was shipped across the world from New Zealand to Ipswich. Gail had read about Pickle’s plight in an online news story and decided to catch up with the possum during an already-planned trip to the UK. Pickles was at Yorkshire International Quarantine Centre when Gail met her and she discovered that Pickle’s penchant for travel was not the only thing that made her unusual.

“She was surprisingly friendly,” says Gail, who has been researching possums for the last five years at AgResearch’s Wallaceville campus.

“Pickles would come when she was called and sit on your knee. I am used to catching possums by their tails but Pickles liked being picked up as you would a cat.”

Possums are generally cautious animals but Pickles quickly developed a strong bond with Sara Stevenson, the daughter of the couple that runs the quarantine centre.

“She’s extremely tame and happy – I’ve never experienced anything like it. It could be that she used to be a pet in New Zealand or that she’s just been traumatised by the experience of her trip.”

Gail is passionate about her work with possums and was delighted to be able to give nutritional advice to the quarantine officers.

“Because they don’t have possums in the UK, they were unsure on how to care for Pickles. When I visited, she was on a mainly fruit diet. Fruit to possums is like sweets to a child. So I suggested they introduce some carrots and cabbage – in the wild possums mainly eat green, leafy shoots.”

Gail was in the UK to attend a prestigious parasitology conference, ICOPA XI. She was presenting a recent breakthrough in her team’s research into the use of nematodes for the control of tuberculosis (TB) and reproduction in possums. Her team, part of AgResearch’s Animal Health Section, has made a transgenic nematode that expresses a protein associated with TB. The protein creates an immune response in possums – a marsupial that is a major reservoir of the disease. It is hoped that, in the future, reproductive proteins could be used in the same way, creating a biocontrol for the possum population.

The research is part of AgResearch’s work with the National Research Centre for Possum Biocontrol.