There is a possum in my roof: what can I legally do?
Two sentences on NSW pages look as if they contradict each other. Read together they make one rule: possums are protected, catching one without a licence is illegal, and the licensed way to move one ends with it back on your own ground.
The disagreement, and how it resolves
One section of the NSW removal page says catching and releasing possums is illegal in this state and prohibited without a licence. A later section of the same page says a householder who has tried the removal steps without success can hire a professional licensed catch and release possum operator, for a fee, to do it instead.
Possums are protected in New South Wales. Capturing a protected animal is considered harm under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016, so, to avoid injuring the animal, the catch and release possum licence granted will stipulate the following conditions.
From catch and release possums, NSW Environment and Heritage.
It is illegal to relocate or kill a possum and to trap or catch and release them without a licence.
From how to remove a possum from your roof, NSW Environment and Heritage.
The two sentences are not a contradiction. Both are about the same thing: who is allowed to catch a possum at all. Possums are protected in NSW, and capturing a protected animal counts as harm under the Biodiversity Conservation Act 2016, which is why the licence granted to catch one sets conditions that avoid injuring the animal. The offence is the unlicensed catch. The operator in the later section holds the licence that makes the catch lawful.
That is the whole rule in one line: catching or otherwise harming a possum, other than by an authorised officer or a licensed person, is illegal. It is also illegal to relocate or kill a possum, or to trap or catch and release one, without a licence.
What the licensed version looks like
The conditions attached to a catch and release licence are specific, and they answer the question a householder usually asks next, which is where the possum goes. It has to be captured live and released back onto the property it was caught on, because possums are territorial, and research has shown that relocating them far from the place they were caught greatly reduces their survival. The department's removal page puts the same rule with a distance on it: the possum is released at dusk, no more than 150 metres from the point of capture, near something the animal can climb straight away. The state's possum page gives the reason again: a resident possum has to go back near your property, because it will not survive somewhere new.
The licence conditions reach further than the catch. Releases are made after sunset, against a structure the animal can climb straight away. The person holding the licence is also strongly encouraged to seal the potential entries into the roof cavity permanently, so the problem does not simply return, and the removal page repeats the point once the animal has gone: find the access points around the building and block them, so new possums are not invited in.
Hiring that person is a licence check, in the same way as hiring anyone for licensed work. The department asks householders to find out whether the individual or company they are hiring holds a current catch and release licence, because removing and relocating a possum without one is illegal. Those operators are licensed by the department's Biodiversity and Heritage Regulator. A local National Parks and Wildlife Service officer may instead issue a licence to the property owner, if the owner wants to do the removal; either way, the licence comes first.
What can be done without any licence at all
Removing the animal is the smallest part of the problem. A possum in the roof is frustrating, and taking that possum out without changing anything else will not fix it. Brush-tailed possums live in roof cavities, and the way to avoid the situation is to keep the roof in good condition so a possum cannot get in.
The steps that belong to the householder need no permit. The first is to make sure it is a possum and not a rat or a mouse, which the department suggests checking by sprinkling flour near the suspected entry and reading the footprints; a possum is the size of a cat. Where it is possible to get into the roof, the nest, which carries the animal's scent, can be moved into a possum box to encourage the move. The box is best sited in a tree in the garden, secured at least 4 metres above the ground. Once the possum has moved, the old entry can be blocked with a one-way door or with wire or wood, and overhanging branches trimmed.
A relocated possum will not survive in a new territory, because that ground already belongs to a dominant animal; rehousing it away from the roof but nearby, ideally in a garden tree, is the version that works. One further piece of advice from the state's possum page is worth passing on, because it changes the aim: encouraging a local possum to make your yard its territory can put other possums off moving in at all.
When the roof is still occupied
The department does not pretend the steps always work. Where they have been tried and the animal is still in the roof, and the householder does not want to do the removal, the licensed catch and release operator is the next step. If every option is exhausted, the department's page also sets out the pathway to a landholder's licence to harm protected native animals, which is an application, not a free hand. And the licensed route with an officer of the local National Parks and Wildlife Service is still a licence, granted before anything is trapped.
What this means for a Shire roof
A Shire backyard pressed against bush is good possum country, and the law's shape here is unlike the law around the other animals on the fence line: the animal may not be taken away from your ground at all, so the person to call is not someone who will move it somewhere else. A licensed operator catches the possum and releases it at dusk within 150 metres of the capture point, and is strongly encouraged to seal the way it came in.