Mount Pleasant Magazine July/August 2018

72 www.MountPleasantMagazine.com | www.ILoveMountPleasant.com | www.BestofMP.com feature On the other hand, possums can sometimes be pretty entertaining. Some have even “gone Hollywood,” as this writer discovered while living in Los Angeles. For years, our backyard was visited nightly by an obviously well-fed chap we dubbed “The Nine O’Clock Opossum.” We’d sit on our back porch, and, each night, within minutes of the appointed hour, he would appear, strolling casually along our fence before disappearing into the shrubbery. Five or ten minutes later, he would reappear and take another leisurely amble in the other direction, presumably back to his nest. He never bothered us. We never bothered him. And nature was in balance. Kay Hyman, the well-known director of community engagement for the Charleston Animal Society, said, “Opossums benefit humans in many ways, helping control a number of unwanted pests. One big advantage to having opossums in our community is that they love to eat palmetto bugs!” “Opossums play an essential role in our ecosystem by eating rodents, overripe fruit, dead animals and insects, including thousands of Lyme disease-spreading ticks. They don’t destroy property or dig into soil, and they avoid human contact at all cost. PETA encourages everyone to leave North America’s only marsupials in peace, allow them to cross the road, and always check a dead opossum’s pouch for orphaned infants who need to be taken to a wildlife rehabilitation center,” added Dr. Christine Capaldo, a veterinarian with People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA). Technically, the creature most everyone calls a possum is an “opossum,” a term derived from the Native American Powhatan/Algonquin language. They’ve been around since the time of the dinosaurs, but, apparently, no one thought to give them a name until Europeans stumbled across them in the New World and asked the indigenous residents what the heck they were. It might have taken a while before those early colonists even saw any opossums. They’re nocturnal, and many species have prehensile tails, much like monkeys, so they can hang from and hide in the branches of trees. And, as even schoolchildren know, they frequently “play possum” when threatened, curling up into a ball to make predators think they’ve departed for that great possum pasture in the sky. Because possums aren’t cute like bunny rabbits or fascinating like raccoons, a natural tendency when one appears on your property is to find some way to make it go away. Unfortunately, not much works. Spraying predator urine from coyotes or foxes is a messy waste of time. Mothballs and ammonia-soaked rags are a losing proposition. Even high-tech ultrasonic devices are at best a dismal failure. So what works? The best way to protect your Lowcountry lodging from these hardy scavengers is to remove all possible sources of food and make sure there are no openings that allow them to crawl into your home. If all else fails, the experts recommend contacting Animal Control to be put in touch with professional possum wranglers who can trap them and release them into the wild. Of course, there’s always that supper alternative. You’ll need some sweet potatoes, sugar, butter, salt, pepper, spices to taste and, of course, a large possum, skinned and cleaned. Put your possum in a pot with a lid and stew it in a little water for an hour or so, then add the rest of the ingredients and cook some more while your guests enjoy some nice red wine – lots of nice red wine. Serve and find out who your real friends are. Or, just order takeout from a good Chinese restaurant – after first checking to make sure it’s not located next door to a possum’s playground.