What can you do with a Virginia possum?

[Gary Fowler]

My wife is from Venezuela and not long after we moved back to the USA, she was putting out some garbage early one morning and came running back in the house. She dragged me back outside to the garbage can exclaiming "There is the biggest rat I ever saw in the garbage can". Of course it was a scavenging possum. I still have a good laugh every time I tell that story.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

I kill all of them I can, I like the nesting birds much better and a possy is REALLY good at cleaning them out!

They are VERY good at homing in on the baby birds still in the egg just before they hatch, and that's the end of the whole nest right there...

SR

 

[oosik]

I'm just as glad that we don't have possums or opossums around here. We have our allotment of carnivores & omnivores here to do the necessary "clean up" of anything that dies or is foolish enough to venture out at night.

 

[k0ua]

Having watched 'possums crawl out of old dead rotting carcases of farm animals, it will be a cold day before I eat one. I have killed some when they hang around the house. Mostly I just let them alone. I have killed and burned rabid possums, so I think that immunity to rabies might be BS. Possums and vultures have a purpose. But they certainly aren't majestic animals.

 

[MossRoad]

How do you know they had rabies? The only way to confirm it would be a lab test.

 

[prichard]

Having watched 'possums crawl out of old dead rotting carcases of farm animals, it will be a cold day before I eat one. I have killed some when they hang around the house. Mostly I just let them alone. I have killed and burned rabid possums, so I think that immunity to rabies might be BS. Possums and vultures have a purpose. But they certainly aren't majestic animals.

Great analogy. Possums: 4 legged vultures.

 

[1965]

I don't like that they eat baby birds just before they hatch. I have noticed a few nests that seemed to go empty faster then what I expected. I really enjoy my birds so if it is a choice between possums/opossums and the birds then the invader will be on the radar. We have lots of coyotes, vultures, seagulls, skunks and racoons so cleaning up natures mess is well covered. Where do they live, holes in the ground or in trees? Do they stay in an area or just vagrant around? I will have to do a bit of studying up on them I guess. With the government cutbacks to our ministry of natural resources there is really not much protection from that. Usually a situation has to become way out of control before they get involved and there methods don't always work. They released fishers in an area 60 miles away from me to deal with a raccoon problem and they spread rampant along the Bay of Quinte water line and are now a problem themselves attacking peoples cats and small dogs right in there yards. Then they released a few sterol cougars to eat the fishers and did not tell the public they were going to do so and people started freaking out when they saw them understandably. So what do they do, release these things and tell them to only eat a specific thing and expect them to do so and not something that may be a way easier prey? Leave it to man to really mess up nature.

 

[k0ua]

How do you know they had rabies? The only way to confirm it would be a lab test.

Well, what would you think about a possum in daylight chasing its tail for over an hour?

Dad said for me to get the .22 and he got the gas can and the matches.

 

[cqaigy2]

I'm just as glad that we don't have possums or opossums around here. We have our allotment of carnivores & omnivores here to do the necessary "clean up" of anything that dies or is foolish enough to venture out at night.

They have them on the West side, which surprised me as i'd never seen one while living on the East side of the state, didn't even know they were in Washington state. I wonder if they were imported or always here.

 

[cqaigy2]

Well, what would you think about a possum in daylight chasing its tail for over an hour?

Dad said for me to get the .22 and he got the gas can and the matches.

There's probably a number of things that could cause that behavior, not just rabies, possible distemper, either way you probably put it out of it's misery.