Beware the Oakwood Opossum
Will sends this in, says “This critter was hanging out on my fence and didn’t budge when I threw a couple of rocks at it.”
Will sends this in, says “This critter was hanging out on my fence and didn’t budge when I threw a couple of rocks at it.”
Omar the Opossum. He’s here to steal your stash!
There was a baby possum in my backyard last summer. I tried to shoo him away, but he got scared and just stuck his nose in the corner of the fence. I finally just gave up and figured he’d find his way out. A few minutes later, my cat jumped in the yard. I’m thinking – oh great, there’s going to be a fight. Then, much to my surprise, the cat comes up to him, they rub noses, and each continued on their own way. I guess my cat had befriended the baby possum! I haven’t seen him since, but I guess he’s grown up now.
My family’s kind of embarrassed but I guess it happens. We had a possum living in the space above the cieling. We had seen them wandering the street. Then we started seeing fleas and hearing scratching etc in the wall and above. Then some baby possums found a way inside. I bought traps and caught about 8 little ones in and around the house, one in my neighbor’s yard, and possibly the mother. Each one I let go far from here (Hanover, Goochland, New Kent and forests in Henrico). Then someone STOLE my traps when I was trying to catch another my neighbor saw. Also during this time, we had a raccoon wandering about too but it avoided the trap. So, all this wildlife in such an urban area, after that deer was killed on my fence, I’m still waiting for the foxes and bears.
Tastes like chicken.
No worries. There are a few in the West End too. I call the big one Bitey.
I think it’s so cool that we have possums on the Hill. I’ve also recently seen racoons in my alley. 2-3 years ago I had a baby possum in my crawl space. I thought it had died down there b/c soon a hideous stench rose into the house, but when I crawled under the crawl space to get out what I thought would be a little possum corpse all I found were droppings. I don’t know what possums eat, but OMG!! A couple of years ago I saw an entire family, mom and 4-5 babies all killed at the intersection of 31st and Clay. The roll over and play dead trick doesn’t work so well with cars. But it pisses me off to see any road kill on our streets on the Hill b/c no one should be driving fast enought to kill a possum, squirrel, cat, rat (I have yet to see a dog killed by a car, though my dog gave it a good try the other day when he bolted from the house). We need more traffic circles to slow down these drivers.
We have seen them for the past year. According to the VDGIF you should be concerned that they are around. They are not timid like their country brethern and they carry just as many diseases (rabies for example). Don’t leave dog/cat food outside and keep your trash contained in a can. Thankfully, we haven’t seen a skunk, which VDGIF also told us had a large population within the city.
Brad, are you out of your FRIGGING mind? Cool to have possums in the city? What’s next?- mountain lions and coyotes? As for those 4 – 5 babies killed, thank goodness they weren’t able to grow up.
There have been lots of possum and racoons in Church Hill for years now. They are nocturnal and usually go unnoticed. The possum do a great job of cleaning up roadkill and other small animals while we sleep so they are actually very usefull creatures.