Lots of critters help themselves to our vegetable gardens, berry bushes grape vines and apple trees. Groundhogs eat the most but we also are regularly visited by deer, raccoons, rabbits, skunks, all kinds of birds and apparently opossum. I have never seen opossum in our area, which makes sense since these reclusive marsupials are nocturnal. The only opossums that I have seen have been road kill. I bought a foldable cage at a garage sale for three dollars with plans to convert it to a live catch trap. The local groundhog, who we suspect lives under our sheds, eats quite a bit of our garden. The worst part is that he tends to eat plants before they've even started to produce.
I affixed a spring to the cage to slam the door shut and also attached a latch to keep it closed. A wooden dowel keeps the door open until it is pulled out of place by heavy fishing line that is connected to an apple suspended above the floor of the cage. The system seemed to be pretty sensitive, but a critter managed to eat the apple on two different nights without tugging on the line that held it. Two nights ago I added a junk pipe and faucet handle as an additional tripping mechanism. Basically, the pipe stands on end next to the apple, but it is very tipsy and top heavy. It is likely to be knocked over by anything that enters the cage. When it does fall it jerks a line that pulls the door-holder-opener stick which, of course, allows thee door to slam shut. Two nights ago we had no visitors.
Last night at 1:30, however, to a ferocious gnarly growl preceded by a slam sound. Even though the trap was over 100 feet away from our open bedroom window, the sound was enough to wake my wife, Joan, and I. Although I wasn't sure it was the trap and a caught animal that woke us, I decided to check it out. I expected to see a raccoon or groundhog, so when I saw this weird looking giant rat-thing it took me more than a few seconds to determine what I was looking at. I was thinking opossum, but he was sitting on his rat tail which made it a bit harder for me.
My daughter Svea has been very excited and intrigued by the trap. She has been checking it for groundhogs the first thing every morning and again throughout each day. I decided to wake her up so that she could see the critter; I knew that she would be exhilarated. When I told her that we had caught something she practically leapt out of bed. I armed her with the flashlight and I took the camera. As we headed outside she was talking about groundhogs. I reminded her that we also have skunks, rabbits, raccoons and opossum in the area; we possibly could even catch a stray cat or dog. As we rounded the shed she shined the light on the trap and immediately identified our catch as an opossum. Then Svea began spewing out all kinds of opossum facts; I had no idea that she knew so much about them. Here's the night picture:
This morning Joan and I heard the children wake and their door open. Svea was telling her sister Brigitta about the opossum. Then we heard the porch door open. We saw Svea leading Britta to the trap. Then they came back to get their baby sister Annika. Joan was concerned about a two year old being lead to a caged wild animal by her five and seven year old sisters but we figured that cautious Svea would keep little Annika at a safe distance. Later this morning I drug the cage to the middle of the back yard. I wanted to see him "run" a ways before he disappeared. My father-in-law opened the cage as I took a movie clip with the camera. Bill had to poke the opossum a bit to get him to go, but he did. Below is a picture of our opossum caged in the back yard. He had drug everything he could get his paws on into the cage; I don't know what he planned on doing with it all.
The girls named him "Opie".
Movie clip of Opie being freed:
http://hallbuzz.com/movies/2007/opossum_my_possum.wmv
