Opossum Tracks
Local tracker Kim Cabrera created this video on opossum track identification. Cabrera Writes:
How to identify opossum tracks. Opossums are the only marsupial in North America and their tracks are as unique as they are! The opossum has an opossable thumb, like humans do. Check it out in this video!
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The Virginia opossum was not originally native to the west coast of the United States. Damned Okies intentionally introduced it into the West during the Great Depression, probably as a source of food and now occupies much of the Pacific coast. Its range has been expanding steadily northward into British Columbia, Canada.
I remember when a friend called an animal control officer because a possum was killing her ducks. The officer was all a twitter to come trap the possum for safely relocating it as it was the first she’d seen. Dang it, they’re like rats. If there’s one in sight, there’s twenty more hiding out. They’re remarkable destructive in their slow way.
But they eat ticks so we need them
Educate yourself. They don’t kill ducks. They don’t get rabies, or very minimal chance. Body temp too low. Contact a wildlife center for accurate info. And furthermore it is illegal to relocate any animal. Get more info from fish and game.
They eat baby birds. Including ducklings. Period. And there are many stories about them taking larger birds on occasion. And it was Fish and Wildlife (or rather Fish and Game at that time) that did the actual relocating.
I hate when people arrogantly inform others, telling them to “educate yourself” when they themselves need the education. It’s amazing how often that phrase is paired with insisting on their own poor information.
Grits and ‘Possum.
Yum.
I saw this lil’ guy wandering around a couple of days ago….so cute!
Maybe this will work..
good one!
People that hate Opossums are just plain ole dumb. They’re so good to have around, unless of course you love those giant river rats lol. They do eat mice and rats along with many other pest that we all hate and they’re immune to many things such as rabies. There’s been almost zero documented cases of rabies in the species. They are one of very few invasive species that’s been of such a great benefit to humans in the western U.S. They’re also quite harmless and far more scared of you than you are of them. I always throw my veggies scraps out in the back for them. Then when winter comes I stop feeding them. I prefer them to eat the river rats in the winter, not my scraps.
sweet pic! Did you take it?
Possums are the intermediary host for EPM, they eat frogs, chicken eggs and baby birds. I’ve never read about plovers or rails being impacted but it seems their nests are a likely prey for them. I don’t hate them but they are destructive. Tick (or slug) eating or not.
There is an abandoned Army airstrip near the Willamette Valley in Oregon. A lot of the men were from Oklahoma and raised Possums in hutches like rabbits, for food. When the base was abandoned at the end of WWII everyone left and just turned the possums loose. The Willamette Valley was renowned for its populations of pheasant and quail. Ten years after turning the possums loose, the birds almost disappeared completely. Every time they laid an egg, the possums ate it.
I have lived in this county, on the coast for over sixty years and never saw a possum until I was about 15 years old. As the possum population grew, the quail, of which there were thousands and thousands disappeared. The plovers and the nearly flightless little birds that ran around in the brush went away too. Possums absolutely destroy ground nesting bird populations.
Possums have a good effect when living in town, as they eat things that people don’t want lying or crawling around, but they are nothing but a disaster for the native ecosystem in our area. I run over the little bastards.
Ask a bird how much we need the giant rat looking bastards
Ask a bird how much we need you.
And they taste ok.cabrera (goatherd)de gamez.sinaloa , Mexico. Where everyone is a alien.
Zoltan, I do have ancestors from Sinaloa and Guerrero, Mexico. Are we related?
Crawling into a furry warm pouch with food sounds pretty dope right now. I love these little guys and I didn’t know their tracks at all, thanks!
Glad you enjoyed.
J. You sound like a city kid. Have you ever even seen a birds nest It doesn’t sound like you have
Nature’s so darned unfair.
Opossums have more teeth than any other N. American mammal, if memory serves. Nobody can figure out why no other marsupials can compete successfully with placental mammals. Clunky, goofy, slow, they keep surviving. Handy rations for big, hungry wildcats. In Ohio, they sometimes lose their tails to frostbite. Trippy to be sitting at night and have a ghost-like ‘possum face float past your window. They DO NOT eat pot, so please, no hot dogs on gang hooks like idiots put out for groovy, carnivorous martens and fishers.
Great report, Kim and Kym.
Thanks Lost Croat
One year I noticed that some of the lemons on my Meyer lemon tree were skinless. They looked OK, they were plump and juicy, but they had no skins. WTF???? Then one night I heard some rattling in the tree, turned on the outside light, looked out and saw a possum scuttling out of the tree. I guess it likes the skin and not the fruit! I can’t say this was much of a problem; it was a big tree with a lot of lemons, but it sure was weird.