One of my friends recently traveled to New Zealand to visit her daughter. I asked my friend to bring me a skein of yarn from New Zealand to add to my stash. When my friend returned, she handed me 10 skeins of mohair yarn in a color that reminds me of a soft blue sky mottled with pinkish clouds. I see a sweater in that yarn, something airy and lacy.

“Guess what?” my friend said when she gave me the mohair yarn. “In New Zealand, possums are more than just roadkill.” She pulled a sweater from a bag and set it in my hands. I had never seen anything quite like it. The yarn was an earthy green color. A short nap lay over it like a smoky haze. “It’s possum fiber,” my friend said.

That small statement sent me scurrying to the Internet to find out more about possum fiber. Here’s what I gleaned at Web sites for New Zealand possum products, the Christchurch City Libraries and the Kiwi Conservation Club:

. In mid-1800s, the Australian brush-tailed opossum was introduced to New Zealand in an effort to establish a fur trade.

. In Australia, where many trees have spines, prickles or poisonous leaves that possums won’t eat, the possum is protected. But in New Zealand, where the animal has no natural predators, it has become an environmental hazard because of its fondness for the new leafy growth of native trees.

. By eating trees, the possums also are eating the habitat of New Zealand’s native birds like the kiwi. Possums also disturb nesting birds by eating eggs and chicks.

. New Zealand wildlife experts estimate that there are 70 million possums in New Zealand and that they eat 7.5 million tons of vegetation per year. In other words, possums are eating New Zealanders out of house and home.

. Possums are controlled in New Zealand by hunting, poisoning and trapping, which no one likes to think about and is upsetting to those who care about animal rights.

. Conservationists, landowners, government regional councils, farmers and businesses in New Zealand work together in the effort to get rid of possums.

New Zealanders, who produce fine merino wool yarns and mohair yarns, put their fiber expertise to work and discovered that fiber can be created from possum fur by blending it with wool.

Possum fiber is hollow and 7 percent warmer than wool. It is anti-static, washes well, can be dyed or bleached and will not pill or shed. It is used to make knitted scarves, gloves, hats, sweaters, woven rugs and as a nonwoven liner for jackets.

I have not yet discovered a source for purchasing possum fiber yarn, but no doubt a longer session of surfing the Web will yield businesses that sell the yarn.

Visit www.mohair.co.nz to learn more about mohair yarns. Visit www.nzpossumproducts.co.nz to learn about possum fiber. Visit www.kcc.org.nz to learn more about the damage possums do to New Zealand’s environment or go to Google and type in “possum fiber” to obtain Web sites that give information about the possum problem, pro and con.

Snippets

In response to my column of Dec. 21, Deborah Pulliam writes that contrary to information I found at a Web site, some of the Maine textile-related papers at Harvard Business School’s Baker Library have been published. She used the papers in her “Mitten Production in Nineteenth-Century Downeast Maine,” a chapter in “Textiles in Early New England: Design, Production and Consumption,” published in 1999. The book is available at the Fogler Library, University of Maine, Orono.

She also writes that The Haskell Silk Co. of Portland was the subject of Jacqueline Field’s master’s thesis at the University of Southern Maine. Field has published several chapters of the thesis and may publish other chapters.

Ardeana Hamlin welcomes suggestions. Call 990-8153, or e-mail ahamlin@bangordailynews.net.