Mouse-eating opossums run amok in Brooklyn

NYP ^ | September 19, 2010 | HEATHER HADDON

[Daffynition]

The city played possum -- and Brooklyn residents lost.

In a bizarre attempt to outwit Mother Nature, city officials introduced beady-eyed opossums in Brooklyn years ago to scarf down rats running amok in the borough, according to local officials.

Surprise: Operation opossum didn't work.

Not only do wily rats continue to thrive, but the opossums have become their own epidemic, with bands of the conniving creatures sauntering through yards, plundering garbage cans and noshing on fruit trees.

They've even taken up golf, with two sightings of the whiskered marsupials at the Dyker Heights municipal course in the past week, local officials said.

"They are everywhere," said Theresa Scavo, chairwoman for Community Board 15, which represents Sheepshead Bay and surrounding south Brooklyn neighborhoods.

"Didn't any of those brain surgeons realize that the opossums were going to multiply?"

A city Sanitation spokeswoman said they were not involved with the Brooklyn opossum drop, and the Health Department didn't have any record of it. But Scavo and two city councilmen said city officials spoke about the effort at a 2007 Brooklyn forum.

"City brought possums in to take care of rats," read Community Board 15 notes from the meeting.

The opossums were set free in local parks and underneath the Coney Island boardwalk, with the theory being they would die off once the rats were gobbled up, said Councilman Domenic Recchia (D-Brooklyn).

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Daffynition. A $1 a head bounty on rats would A) get rid of the rats and B) keep the homeless indoors all winter in apartments they lease. It could be expensive, because it’s estimated that NYC has over 500 million rats.

[Daffynition]

New York needs to look at Detroit. They have Glemie Dean Beasley, a Detroit raccoon hunter and meat salesman.

"This city is going back to the wild," he says. "That's bad for people but that's good for me. I can catch wild rabbit and pheasant and coon in my backyard."

"Today people got no skill and things is getting worse," he laments. "What people gonna do? They gonna eat each other up is what they gonna do."

A licensed hunter and furrier, Beasley says he hunts coons and rabbit and squirrel for a clientele who hail mainly from the South, where the wild critters are considered something of a delicacy.

He believes coon meat tastes something like mutton or pork, but to the uneducated palate, it has the aroma and texture of opossum.

[Pinetop]

You eat coon with sweet potatoes. I had possum as a kid. I think it was served with sweet potatoes and biscuits, but, then what wasn’t served with sweet potatoes and biscuits? Ah, southernness.

[Daffynition]

>A $1 a head bounty on rats......<

This could become part of the *New-New Deal*? I like your idea!

Franklin D. Roosevelt Possum Hunting - 1930

Mr. Tigner (left) and Gov. Roosevelt (right) enjoying a freshly cooked possum. The possum is being served by Mr. Tigner's daughter, Martha(center).

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks D!

[SunkenCiv]

Here’s a couple of things that need to meet up:

Plans in development for new app to track road kill spots
MNN.com | Sep 18 2010 | Katerine Butler
Posted on 09/19/2010 4:00:49 AM PDT by Daffynition
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/chat/2592109/posts

Manifold Roast (Car-b-que)
By Jay Grush on August 27, 1999
http://www.food.com/recipe/manifold-roast-car-b-que-884

[LongElegantLegs]

Possums don’t carry as many diseases as you might think...I only know this because there’s a momma possum that holes up in our attic every year to have her babies. The dog finds them when they get old enough to start exploring; limp, soggy little bundles of fur that I have to pick up with tongs and take outside. Every fall we go up there and try to seal the place up.

I’m tempted to try trapping her, but I have no idea what we’d do with her if we caught her.

[11Bush]

She could tell you 100 ways to fix that 'possum.

[LongElegantLegs]

There’s an idea; I’ll take her to the vet and have her spayed!
(Yes, I know that’s not what you meant, but the thought of eating possum is just too gross to contemplate. We’re city folk.)

[goat granny]

I thought possum ate carrion and eggs... They are not predators like coons...the are rather slow running....

[grellis]

Possums don’t carry rabies. I’d rather have a possum problem than rats.

[egannacht]

I have a load of them and they act like really big rats when they get inside your home

[csmusaret]

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?q=gamo+big+cat&cid=5656879019833567101&ei=A5CXTO_sOoqQwgXlv-XbDQ&sa=title&ved=0CAcQ8wIwADgA#p

[allmendream]

And coyotes eat folk singers!

[allmendream]

“A possum isn’t very bright but he is wired for survival. They don’t starve to death easily.”

I remember in “Ecology” class some bright boy had the idea that a predators population was tied to its prey population. They did study after study in controlled situations and couldn't ever seem to see the effect.

When there was a huge disease that wiped out the rabbit population somewhere they were all intent on studying the bobcat population, expecting it to nose dive also.

And yet, the bobcats, who previously dined on rabbits almost exclusively, didn't seem to decline AT ALL in population. It seems that rather than starving to death they all decided that eating otherwise less desirable prey items was preferable to starvation. Those silly frog eating bob cats! Didn't they know that Ecologists thought they should all lay down and starve?

[Gordon Pym]

All these possum references and not one allusion to the great one of Possum Lodge?

http://redgreen.com/

[Daffynition]

What a terrible omission! Thanks for the link!

[OldPossum]

Been told that possum is edible.

After being badgered by my grandfather my grandmother cooked a possum and served it up. It looked exactly like the carcass of a huge rat. And the taste was horrible. Grandfather never again brought up the subject.

P.S. At that time I was 10 and called "Possum" for my interest in possum-hunting. Today I'm "OldPossum" (but I don't hunt them).