possum

[Lisa BB.]

[e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

There is no reason to kill it. Try your town hall. My neighbor had a problem animal and the town animal control people set a Have-a heart trap. The nighbors watched for the animal to be caught in the trap and the animal control took it away. hmmm, the only thing, is I wonder if they killed it.

We have plenty of wild critters around the neighborhood. We bought a trap and caught groundhogs,rabbits,possums. The rabbits we let them go because they don't do any harm around our yard. The others we take them to the huge park nearby and release them.

I'm not sure if we're supposed to be doing this. We just make sure no park employees or some goodie goodie is nearby. The park is a wild habitat and not your run of the mill city park. There are large ravines and places where people won't be hiking.

Once caught, we line the trunk of the car with newspapers. Put on thick leather gloves so not to touch anything. The ground hogs usually growl and hiss. The possums usually sleep. LOL. The park is only a couple of miles away and we let the animals out and they make a new home.

[blazeofglory]

WRONG....

There is a MAJOR reason to kill it. It's called EPM, which is a disease that horses get and is spread by possums. We have horses, therefore any possum that comes on my property will be shot if I can get it. When I first moved here I was shooting about 20 of them per year. I shot one in 2006 and two in 2007, so the numbers have gone down quite a lot.

It's not just the fact they are ugly and can carry diseases, they CAN BE DEADLY FOR HORSES. Even if you don't own horses, if you live in the country and neighbors have horses, please destroy possums. If you must live trap them, DO NOT release them near horse farms. Better yet, relase them in the city, such as in the center grassy divider between the two directions of traffic on a high speed interstate highway. That way they'll either get killed by the northbound, or the southbound traffic, and you can place bets to determine which lane will get them.

Sorry, I love most animals, and I try my best to be compassionate and humane, but I love our horses much more than some ugly possum carrying diseases, that dont need to be hanging around my front door. I've shot a couple coons that got inside my barn and snarled at me. I felt bad about it. I shot a skunk that sprayed one of my barn cats, and I felt bad about it. I NEVER feel bad when I kill possums, rats, or mice. All of them are filthy disease carriers, and damage property.

If you want to learn more about this EPM that can kill a horse, and is spread by possums, go here:

[Lisa BB.]

[e-mail] wrote in news: [e-mail]:

No horses around here. No stables for riders. If we used guns we'd be arrested. The possums are a real menace for horses.

[Cheri]

I was told that they have to be taken several miles away or they will find their way back, dunno if that's true, but AC won't do it here, and we aren't supposed to, but 25 miles to the Delta works around here. ;-)

Cheri

[Cheri]

They can do a fair amount of damage though, especially if they end up in an attic.

Cheri

[Whispurr the Cat]

2 weeks ago I had a possum in my garage. I put on my welding gloves and cornered the little critter. I was hoping it would faint, as they sometimes do (play possum), but this one didn't so I grabbed it by it's tail (they're quite slow) and dropped it in a cardboard box and xported it several miles to a rural location near a small stream and unloaded it into the ditch. No need to kill it, and I wouldn't shoot it in the garage anyway. No worries about neighbors as it is a rural area.

YMMV.

Steve southiowa

[Whispurr the Cat]

Does EPM make the horse meat unfit for human consumption?

Or unfit for use as dog food?

Your human egocentrism extends to some animals, but not all?

Steve southiowa

[Frank]

My last experience with my Hava-a-hart was to catch a momma skunk. She was in the trap and her 4 kids were outside it and would not leave and were jumping all over the trap. In spite of this I managed to get it open and release her and never got sprayed. They say you can cover them up and transport them but there is no way a skunk is getting in my SUV.

[mike]

park

ide quoted text -

Yeah, I've never understood folks who want to relocate the pests they catch. If they don't want them, what makes them think that ALL the folks and native animals in another area are going to want them. They're just too lazy to end the cycle of pestilence themselves.

The only place pests should be relocated is undewater for a few minutes, and then into the earth, a garbage can, or in your pan if it's really good eatin'.

[Stephen King]

mike wrote in news: [e-mail]:

yeah, well, why don't you go there first, so you can show everyone where it is.

[Tom Quackenbush]

I agree with your policy about pest relocation, but in a case like Frank's I'd be hard pressed to put down the Mama skunk, too.

I think I have more of a soft spot for skunks than most folks, though. As long as they're not stinking up my house, I say, "live and let live". They seem to have a similar attitude. I might feel differently if I kept chickens, though. Frank - good on you for getting the trap open without getting sprayed.

R. Tom Q.

[gfretwell]

I don't kill much and just about any critter can live around my place if they don't cause trouble but I agree as an encologist, relocating a nonthreatened species is not a good idea. You are probably more ecologically responsible if you just kill it.

[aemeijers]

-

What you call pestilence, most people call an ecosystem.

The only reason the native animals (which predate humans in most locations) don't do what you propose to US, is that they don't have thumbs or guns.

I'm not gonna kill some poor SOB of a coon or possum or whatever for just trying to make a living, as long as they stay outside. Most of them are even pretty amusing to watch. I spend many an hour watching the wildlife out my window- birds, deer, rabbits, squirrels, turkey, racoons, etc. I like them better than I like most people. I may not have a veggie/flower garden for them to snack on, but I also don't use chemicals on the yard, and they seem to feel safe there. A day after it snows, my backyard looks like a grade school playground with all the tracks leading to where the bird feeders are.

Aside from the occasional turd on the porch, or the neigbor cat trying to use the bird feeder as a buffet (almost never successfully), no real problems. Now if I could just get the birds to stop slamming into the sliding doors...

-- aem sends...

[Boden]

Why not live with the critter. He doesn't eat much. I've got moose showing up again this year. They don't fit in my SUV and don't want to be relocated anyhow. I've found that by selecting plant species that they don't favor they no longer do much damage.

[Frank]

Thread reminds me of pictures of raccoon I caught and released a while back:

[Mike]

k:

Actually, I've recently eaten raccoon, and it's very good. Better than squirrel, by far.

Killing something for the sake of killing it, IMO, is a bad thing to do. If it's not trying to kill you, and you're not going to eat it, you shouldn't kill it.

That's a personal choice, though, and if you have the stomach to kill a living creature and throw it away like trash, go for it.

I hunt (a lot), and am going to start raising chickens, and would raise rabbits if my wife would let me, so I don't have a problem with killing an animal for meat. My problem is killing an animal for nothing. I have actually hesitated getting chickens because 'coons will kill them. Having eaten 'coon now, having the chickens as "bait" will be a benefit, IMO. I live in the city, too, but have no problem sniping them with a pellet gun.

When I have a problem with an animal that I can't eat (like a skunk), I'll use non-lethal, non-relocation methods to keep it from going where I don't want it.

If it were up to me, you would have to carry a card in your wallet when you go to the store to buy meat, that shows you've taken a tour of a slaughterhouse and realize the impact you have when you buy meat. Too many people are ignorant about what they eat these days.

[Frank]

back:

I hunt too and feel the same way. Friend of mine had a small farm and raised a beef cow which the family named Bosco. One day we were in a goose pit and friend offered me a roast beef sandwich which I declined. He said Bosco would be disappointed.

I would not eat raccoon and am careful with them since rabies is endemic here.

[Mike]

back:

Yeah, I didn't process them, but would watch it carefully before I shot it...

We are nice to animals as pets, we should be even nicer to the ones we're going to eat, IMO.

[Stormin Mormon]

A shot of rimfire scatter shot "bird loads" isn't enough. Even at a range of three or four inches from the back of an opossum's head. DAMHIKT.

[Stormin Mormon]

So, how do you think it got to YOUR neighborhood? The folks across town, they brought it to you.