I've Stayed Silent for Too Long: Opossums Deserve Our Love

[douglas9]

They’re the heroes of the animal world and should be the heroes of the internet.

In the marsupial family, the opossum really got the short end of the stick: While their Australian cousins, including kangaroos, koalas, and wombats, are adored by the masses, opossums are outcasts. They’re the United States’ only native marsupial, but they’re virtually nobody’s favorite animal. They aren’t the star exhibit at any zoo. You almost certainly won’t see them on the cover of any wildlife magazine. No one has ever squealed, “Trash panda!,” after spotting one digging through a garbage bin, as so many people (somehow) lovingly do with raccoons.

We can’t even get their name right—opossum (pronounced uh-possum), not possum. And yet! Opossums are heroes of the animal world.

Hear me out.

Sure, they’re ugly. They’ve got beady eyes, a hairless tail, and dozens of pointed teeth. When Captain John Smith came to America in the 17th century, he wrote that opossums have a head “like a Swine,” a tail “like a Rat,” and are about the size of a cat, which I must admit, is pretty spot-on. But opossums do more for us than we recognize. “Just because they’re ugly doesn’t mean that they’re not important and worthy of protecting,” David Mizejewski, a naturalist at the National Wildlife Federation and author of the book Attracting Birds, Butterflies, and Other Backyard Wildlife, tells Mother Jones. “If you just open your mind a little bit, you can see them as beautiful creatures.”

https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/07/ive-stayed-silent-for-too-long-opossums-deserve-our-love/

[mopinko]

1. well, i love them.

i have a very diverse ecosystem on my little farm, and opossums are part of that.
between them and the brazillion garter snakes, i have very few bug problems.

now, bunnies and squirrels, them i hate.
but opossums? love them.

[redwitch]

2. I think they're adorable.

And truly helpful little creatures.

[montanacowboy]

3. Ditto!

n/t

[PoliticAverse]

4. Here in New York I only ever see them when they're road kill, unfortunately. n/t

[Lochloosa]

5. Agreed. Kind of tough though.

https://www.hillbillycrackpot.com/how-to-catch-and-cook-a-possum/

How To Cook A Possum – Old Time Possum Recipe
Interested in Cooking Some Possum?
Interested in eating possum? This page is serious. Actual Possum Recipe. Lots of tips and tricks for catching and cooking possums!

I’m not sure why but there’s just something funny about possums to northerners. Would you all laugh about a Crock-pot Beef Recipe? or a recipe for Lobster Thermidor? But when it comes to great meals like Crock-pot Possum or a Possum Stew some people find something funny about it.

Well, I don’t know what you think about possums but us hillbillies takes ’em serious. However, the stereotype of hillbillies eating possum are over exaggerated. The truth is that in most hillbilly homes you’d be lucky to see possum on the table two or three times a week. We never have possum more than three days out of the week at my house

[dweller]

7. very early editions of Joy of Cooking

had a recipe for opossum... recommended feeding it grits for a week before cooking

so they have had that rec for a while now

✌🏼️

[Leghorn21]

6. Look into these eyes and think "ugly"

YEAH I DON’T THINK SO

Squeeeeee, lil baby!!

[Lochloosa]

9. Look into these eyes...

[Leghorn21]

10. It's all an act, L!! It's just a fearsome posture to avoid getting et!! (see recipe above)

Oh but my my, lookit that NOSE...dayam

aww poor t’ing

[luvallpeeps]

12. Exactly!!

Once you know that, you'll fall in love with them.

[quickesst]

8. There is one possum....

.... I have fond memories of.

https://m.

[luvallpeeps]

11. I used to think they were ugly.

My Dad told me he went out on his porch and an opossum hissed at him. He went inside, got some peanut butter, came back out and yanked the opossum's tail a little. He offered the peanut butter, and the rest is history. So here is Peter Opossum on Papa's porch in Pinckney eating peanut butter. [url=https://postimg.cc/8FYrgJVN][img][/img][/url]

[Fla Dem]

13. i like them and Armadillos. Unfortunately they both tend to end up as road kill

more often than other critters in my neck of the woods.

[fleur-de-lisa]

14. I have a few living under my house that you can adopt . . . free of charge.

Sorry, but they are disgusting and they smell like garbage.

Yes, they are cute when young, but they are ugly, rat-like pests when they mature.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

15. They aren't common around here; I've seen only a few -

but there was one in my back yard last summer. I think they're cute.

[TreasonousBastard]

16. I had a "pet" opossum once. It used to sneak in using the "secret" cat entrance.

[littlemissmartypants]

18. They kill and eat venomous snakes, mice/rats and even roaches. That's why I love them.

As omnivores, opossums also eat grass, nuts, fruit, and they will also mice, insects (including roaches), worms, slugs, and snakes (including venomous ones). They are beneficial for helping to control the overpopulation of snakes, rodents, and insects.

http://www.ftwl.org/node/151

[jpak]

19. I had a possum in my yard in Central Maine back in February

Hope the little guy survived the winter.

It can eat all the ticks in my yard it wants.

[Blazesweetie]

20. They actually seem quite docile

I have one (or at least I think it's only one) who lives under my neighbor's shed. A few times he's played dead when he got caught in my yard and my dog went out to investigate him. The last time, I guess he didn't have time to go into his play dead mode and my dog went after him a bit too aggressively. If he hadn't been wearing the collar from just having had surgery, he would have really hurt him. I had to pull my dog off and the opossum wasn't fighting back at all, despite the scary looking teeth and nails. So now, I check with the flashlight before I let my dog out when it's dark so that doesn't happen again.

[ballardgirl]

21. Orphan opossum

We used to have an orphan living under our garden shed. It would come out every evening to get fig bars bought special by my husband. It did not bother my cats. They just ignored it. I think it must have been a female because one showed up years later that had been hit by a car and was pregnant. Sadly, she did not make it but not sure about the babies. They are wonderful animals and deserve our respect.

[denbot]

22. They shamelessly enter through our cat's door and eat their food.

For some reason the cats don't seem to so much as see them, let alone react to their presence. God forbid that one cat eats out of the other's bowl, which will spark a hissy fit, but a possum does that and it's crickets. Both our cats could be within a few feet of a posssum chowing down, and you would not know if they are even aware that a possum is eating their food. Cats are weird.