Steve Gilliland: Exploring Kansas Outdoors!
Steve Gilliland
Dec 20, 2008
SOURCE: The Newton Kansan
They are the dread of every trapper as they are impossible to keep out of furbearer traps; I have even caught them by the tail.
They themselves are listed as furbearers, and their fur is rather pretty but not very desirable. I have caught them in every color, from a purely-white albino to coal-black and every shade in between, but at $3 a pelt for those that are skinned, stretched and dried, it’s hardly worth the effort.
They probably eat more dog food from backyard dog food bowls than the dogs themselves. It appears that God put them together from leftover pieces, as none of their body parts seem to go together, making them to resemble some sort of waddling, fuzzy, Sherman tank.
Yes, I’m talking about our friend the opossum, affectionately known to most of us as a possum’. They are North America’s only marsupial and the mother nurses and carries the young in her pouch when they are newly born and then on her back for another one or two months. They also are known to be about the shortest lived mammal for their size because they have lots of natural predators and are normally docile and not the sharpest knives in the drawer to begin with.
They have a prehensile tail like a monkey and are at home in trees, but they do not hang by their tail as is often depicted. An extensive list of their favorite foods can be summed up in three words … pretty much anything, which is why they are such nuisances to trappers and to most everyone else for that matter.
Normally placid creatures, they can fall into a sort of involuntary shock-like state when frightened, which explains the well known phrase “playing possum.”
They’re known to be carrion eaters, and I’d call them nature’s four-legged vultures. I’ve heard numerous stories from farmers who have seen them crawl out from the carcass of a dead farm animal, where they had probably been living and dining.
They are tough to kill and will more than likely be around with the roaches and coyotes long after man has departed this planet. An old farmer once told me how he found one in the barn and ran it through with a pitchfork. He jammed the pitchfork tines into the ground and left it until morning, when he found both possum’ and pitchfork missing.
Ah yes, our friend the opossum; despised by trappers, whose traps they seem drawn to by some sort of invisible force, and scorned by dog owners everywhere whose dog food they eat like candy. If you live in the Midwestern USA you have possums’ among you. It’s that simple. Another of God’s creatures you’ll someday encounter as you Explore Kansas Outdoors.
