Natural New Zealand possum fur colours

The original Brushtail Possums released into New Zealand from Australia in the late 1800’s where Tasmanian natural “Blacks” and Victorian natural “Greys”

Today natural possums are generally a classified as reddish brown, dark brown or warm grey with beige belly fur as shown in the photo above.

However a professional possum fur grader can sort possum colours into nine distinct colours being grey, pale, black, light slate, dark slate, red brown, dark brown, red neck and rusty.

By using tanning and dying techniques we can achieve all kinds of colours from cream though to jet black.

All dyed possum fur colours need extra protection from sunlight to avoid colour fade, especially in New Zealand and Australia where the sun is very harsh and the ozone layer is thin.

Brushtail possum images are reproduced with permission under a Creative Commons licence.