[gardeners] possums

c.l. avery (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Sun, 27 Apr 2003 03:00:59 +0000

Dear List,

  Thank you all for help and suggestions on my possum problem.  I will call 
the Maryland Dept. of Natural Resources on Monday (the county animal control 
dept. only does domestic animals) and see what they say.  The google search 
on 'getting rid of possums' brought up a whole lot of New Zealand websites.  
Apparently, New Zealand had NO natural mammals as a land mass ages ago, 
including the possum.  The possums were introduced around l00 yrs ago, from 
Australia, and since they have no predators there in New Zealand, they are 
eating up the place and decreasing habitat for the natural birds and 
invertebrates and such....  So New Zealand is all gung ho to get rid of them 
all.  Good for them!  Their Dept. of Natural Resources is recommending a 
"poison" called Challenge which is really a type of Vitamin D3 - apparently 
in big enough doses it kills possums and leaves birds and domestic animals 
alone.  Sounds good to me!  I'll ask the Maryland wildlife guy about it next 
week when I talk to him.... see if it's legal here or not.  I can see me 
using that.  I'm not so sure I can see me (ME!!) trapping the thing and then 
having to pick up the trap while it is in there hissing and looking at 
me,squealing etc and taking that thing in the trap to the local park or 
whatever and releasing it.  No, that I cannot see me doing.  Yes, I am a 
city dweller!  My town is classified as suburb but it's really exurb of DC, 
located inside the beltway, and is inhabited by city folk who don't know 
much about possums and other critters.  Thank you for this list!!!

Carolyn
Bethesda




_________________________________________________________________
Tired of spam? Get advanced junk mail protection with MSN 8. 
http://join.msn.com/?page=features/junkmail