Sorry, Mr. Opposum :(

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

Tonight, my CZ-452 Scout .22LR rifle (a “kids size” .22 rifle) earned it’s keep, it’s short, quick handling form was a definite advantage in dispatching an unwelcome visitor of the Marsupial variety…

I went to the porch about a half hour ago to see if the cats wanted to come in (it’s supposed to get down to 9 degrees Fahrenheit tonight), as I approached the window looking out on the porch, I saw the torso of a long gray furred animal at the cat dish, that’s strange, I said to myself, our cats are a black and white and a orange and white domestic shorthair, not gray…

As I approached the door out to the porch and looked out the window, I saw the animal had a long, pointed snout covered in snow white fur and a hairless tail, it was a bit larger than our cats, yep, it was a 'possom for sure, a rather unusual visitor up here in southern seacoastal Maine… at least I’ve never seen one up close before

Since we have pet cats, and we have horses, and 'possoms are known disease vectors, it came down to me to having the unpleasant duty to dispatch it, I don’t like killing animals if I don’t have to, but I don’t want to put our animals at risk either

I grabbed my CZ-452 Scout, and the 5 round mag from my CZ-452 Trainer, loaded the mag with some CCI Quick-Shoks, and went back out to the porch, when I opened the door, the 'possom ran into one of the cat’s storm barrels (wooden casks with a hole cut in them and stuffed with hay), and sat there, glaring at me with an intensity of hatred I had never seen in any animal, it wasn’t snarling, or growling, just…staring…

the barrels were about six feet away from me

I apologized to the critter, it couldn’t help being what it was, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time, I worked the bolt, loading a Quick-Shok, and raised the Scout, waiting until it’s head was turned and it’s ear facing me, as my finger tightened around the trigger, again, I apologized to the 'possom…

The Scout fired, the Quick-Shok entered the ear, and the 'possom just simply dropped, a clean, humane one-shot kill, at least Mr. Opposum didn’t suffer needlesly, it’s my duty as an ethical outdoorsman (I don’t consider myself good enough to be a hunter, yet) to make sure I put down my quarry as quickly and humanely as possible and with the absolute minimum of suffering, it’s just unfortunate I had to shoot the critter in the first place, why couldn’t it just stay in the woods? live and let live

Anyway, the Scout has earned it’s keep tonight, the Trainer would have been too long and ungainly for close-quarters my Ruger Mark II would have been too loud and bright (4" barrel vs. 16" barrel), and my Marlin 25 would have been too inconvenient with the scope in the way, the light, nimble iron sighted Scout was just the ticket

Sorry, Mr. 'Possum, I wish it didn’t have to go down this way :frowning:

2
  1. What was the purpose of this thread? Did you want to incite the PETA brigade against yourself?
  2. You could have called animal control to come deal with it.
3

Perhaps, and I think that this is likely, he lives in an area like I do.
YOU are the property owner, YOU are animal control. My neighbor called the Sheriff dept. to report some wild dogs once and they laughed at her and said, “Well, take care of it.”

I also doubt that PETA has any presence at all on this board; except as a target of ridicule.

4

Why kill the Possum? They come to my bird feeder all the time and they are welcome. “Disease vectors”? No more than your precious pet felines or any other wild animal. What got your dander up? Do you kill anything that moves?

5

Yes, disease vectors. Possums, like racoons, can have rabies and pass it on without exhibiting symptoms themselves. You should NEVER touch or allow these animals (as well as a few others) near your animals or family members. You can Google it.

6

  1. Well, in fairness, it does seem to be something entirely mundane, pointless, and apparently he had to share it.

  2. If you live in an area where discharging firearms on your porch is not a criminal offense, animal control is not likely to be an option.

That said, I think it was a needless killing. Unless the critter was rabid or something, he could have chased it off by non-lethal means. Karana frowns in his general direction.

7

Actually, rabies in opossums is extremely rare. You can google it.

8

First answer, NO, I do not “kill anything that moves”, in my 41 years on this planet, I have only ended the lives of three animals, a rabid fox, a coyote-dog hybrid that was threatening our pets, and the possum in my OP

I’m a strong believer in live and let live

As to why put the Possom down? this is why, we have horses and my mother and sister run a boarding stable on the property, and as stated by Cedman, here in rural Maine, we are our own animal control

9

It has never occurred to me to kill any of the possums, raccoons, birds or squirrels that enter my property.

10

I love animals. Except possums. They’re evil little bastards. A stray cat had three kittens in our garage, and before we could catch more than one of the kittens, possums killed one of the remaining two, and severely injured the other (we were able to save the second, though her mom abandoned it for dead). They also killed a toy dog that belonged to my aunt’s friend while the owner looked on in horror. In all my years driving, the only things I’ve ever killed were one little bird who flew into my tires and one possum that darted in front of me. I feel bad about the bird.

11

I’d have probably done the same thing - while possums are unlikely to have rabies, they are tenacious little bastards when they think they’ve found a food source.

However, I am wondering - why leave your cat food on the porch? In a rural area, that’s like putting a neon “Eat at Joe’s” sign up on your porch for all the local critters.

12

OP – I think you did the right thing. Killing anything sucks, but sometimes it’s a safety factor.

I wouldn’t let one of those dirty fuckers anywhere near my pets or family.

13

They are potential disease vectors, along with probably every other mammal on the planet and people/animals have caught diseases from them. But frankly they about the least likely critter in your garden to be a zoonotic pest - I’d be more worried about squirrels and I’m not typically that worried about squirrels. As noted rabies in particular is one disease you are almost never going to have to worry about with an opossum - they can carry it, but it is vanishingly rare as their subjectively low body temperture makes them highly resistant.

Opossums are hardly endangered ( and are a game animal to a hardy few :wink: ) and I’m sure they will get bitey if an outdoor cat was stupid enough to really go after one. So shooting one is certainly not the crime of the century, especially if you have an unusually aggressive/dumb outdoor cat you’re worried might get up in the opossum’s grill and not back down. They’ll also do a number on your garbage can if they’re not secured ( though they aren’t half as insidiously clever as raccoons in that regard ).

But in general they are not typically aggressive ( they don’t always back down if challenged, but they also don’t usually provoke confrontations ) and they can be rather beneficial in terms of clearing your garden of pests ( slugs, snails, grubs, evil-ass Jerusalem crickets - they’ve even been known to take the occasional mole ). On balance I’d personally rather have them around than not.

14

Ah, that’s a new one to me. A more reasonable issue to be sure. I’m curious what the infection rate is, but it certainly does seem to be something to take precautions with.

#1 should probably be to feed your cats indoors. Opossums love cat/dog food and it will just act as an attractant.

ETA: Interesting.

15

You could kill these? Or these?
Or this?
Or this?
Or this?
Or this?

16

A live trap carries a “disease-vector” animal as far away as any other animal.

The link on possum-borne horse diseases suggests fencing and grain-storage methods to protect horses, which could help as well.

17

Those things look a lot less cute after you’ve seen one bite a four year old.

Animals in general look less cute after you’ve lived in the country for a while.

18

Not a good idea to let a 4-yo near any wild animal. Possums are no exceptions.

Since I live in the country now, how long do I have to do that? Is a long lifetime enough?

Possums come to my “bird” feeder all the time. They are welcome. I will put a sign our warning them to stay away from MacTech, or they’ll be sorry.

19

I grew up on some rural acreage and understand completely about dispatching varmints. We had a possum that decided to nest in our chimney. He too had to go. :frowning:

20

Why did the chicken cross the road?
To show the possums that it can be done.**

Down here in south Georgia, the joke works better with armadillos which are really just possums on the half-shell.