Feb 17, 2009
SOURCE: The Daily Nonpareil
Standing bloodied and alone and at the edge of the highway, the little guy appeared dazed - and an easy target for the next car to come along.
"We just knew that someone would try to kill him," said Donna Holyfield of Friend.
Holyfield's fiance, Gene Riser of Friend, stopped his Chevrolet pickup and turned around to rescue the crossing casualty. Blood matted its face and oozed from its left ear. The left eye appeared glossy and swollen.
Riser wrapped the battered baby - no larger than a person's hand - in a spare shirt, placed it in the pickup's open box and took it home.
That's how the opossum now recovering at Bow Wow Dog Salon in Friend got the name "Road Kill."
It nearly was.
Foxes, coyotes, dogs, bobcats and owls are natural predators of opossums, but the waddling, weak-eyed marsupial's greatest enemy is the automobile.
"I'm an animal lover. Everything should have a chance," said Holyfield, a dog-grooming hobbyist who operates Bow Wow Dog Salon in the back of a house on the town's main street. Cages in sunny windows house a few ferrets, doves, cockatiels and sugar gliders, a marsupial native to Australia that's a popular exotic pet.
Holyfield's good intentions make Nebraska Game and Parks Commission conservation officers cringe because it's illegal for people to possess wild animals, unless the handler is a member of a rescue or rehabilitation group.
"What usually happens is the animal becomes a pet, and we end up the bad guy because we have to take the animal away," said Duane Arp, the Game and Parks law enforcement supervisor in southeast Nebraska.
Holyfield said she plans to take the opossum to a wildlife rehabilitation facility this spring. "We don't want him to get to the point where we can't turn him loose."
Holyfield and Riser tried once to return the opossum to the wild. Riser took the creature to a river and placed it by a tree stump. Eight hours later, Road Kill was in the same spot.
"If you live in the Waldorf-Astoria, why return to the log cabin?" Holyfield said.
Holyfield has cared for the opossum for nearly two months since picking it up from the road near Wal-Mart south of Seward.
"He was a scared little possum," Holyfield said.
Holyfield and Riser washed the injured opossum's wounds. They forced water into its mouth with a syringe.
Road Kill mostly slept for four days. Then the opossum started showing signs of life and started to eat dry cat food.
That was nearly two months ago. Now Road Kill is the size of an average house cat. Holyfield augments the cat food diet with grapes, melons and a few licks of a high-calorie vitamin supplement. Holyfield bathes the opossum weekly.
Road Kill hangs out and sleeps in a plastic dog kennel. He sometimes wanders around the room. The opossum apparently is blind in his injured left eye, so he usually walks in tight, clockwise circles.
"He had his bell rung pretty good," Holyfield said. "He probably has some brain damage. It knocked him silly."
About opossums
The only marsupial in North America. Common across southern and eastern Nebraska, and in Loup, Niobrara and North Platte River drainages.
Marsupial females carry young in a pouch. After leaving the pouch, baby opossums cling to mother's fur until they're too heavy to hang on.
Best known for faking death as a means of self-defense.
Sometimes bare teeth, hiss or growl in fierce display when encountered, but aren't accomplished fighters and are rarely aggressive.
Feet resemble small human hands. Hind feet are equipped with opposable thumbs.
Naked, scaly tail wraps around and grasps tree limbs.
Mouth contains 50 teeth, more than any other mammal.
Prefer to inhabit underground dens abandoned by other wildlife and hollow trees, logs and brush piles.
Primarily nocturnal, but more active during daylight in cold weather.
Live about three years in the wild.
Classified as a furbearer in Nebraska, but not taken in large numbers by hunters or trappers.
Source: Nebraska Game and Parks Commission
