About 1800 possum furs likely involved in Gore fur theft

It takes 18 possums to get one kilogram of fur.

That means it would take about 1800 possums to make 100kg – the amount of fur that was believed to have been stolen from woolbuyers Brian Redding Ltd in Gore at the weekend.

Sergeant Greg Ballantyne said police had received a report on Monday that someone had entered the Aparima Street premises overnight on Sunday and taken 100kg of possum fur valued at about $11,000.

Brian Redding owner Jim Patterson declined to comment on the stolen fur.

“I’m not very happy about it and I don’t want to comment about it in the meantime.

“There’s more to the story,” Patterson said.

Bob McLean, of McLean Wools, said possum fur was hard to identify because of the lack of branding and it was likely that whoever stole it would be selling it in small lots.

“If someone turned up with 100kg of possum fur then we’d be asking some questions,” he said.

One bale of possum fur was worth $13,000 to $14,000, McLean said.

There was strong demand for possum fur which had been driven by the tourism industry and it was used to make socks, gloves, and mixed with merino wool to make jerseys, he said. MORE>>>