I am betting that by now you have seen some version of the above meme. If you don’t have much first hand experience with Opossums and if you also like animals (which I do) you may have even bought it. How many facts are behind these wild claims?
Well not much and many of the claims are pure conjecture with no backing. While the meme above might have some small bits of truth many of the claims are far from proven and some are likely blown well out of proportion if not outright BS. Many people will argue about this as being scientifically proven, they are also city slickers with no experience and have not even read the study. The following study(hyperlink) is where many of these claims originated and those claims have since went well beyond anything that could be gleaned from this one study. Anyone knows one study doesn’t prove a thing usually, as many variables cannot be accounted for.
First before you think I want to eliminate a species let me say that I believe everything has its place, even the opossum. However facts are facts and one study doesn’t prove that the opossum is a tick fighting machine, and if you read the study it clearly states there could be many causes for their findings, and there could be problems with their data. One study is not enough to prove a thing, especially with so many variables.
I have ran a trap line and lived in the country most of my life. I have ran across many opossums, literally hundreds maybe even thousands and when I first saw this meme I knew something wasn’t right. Many of the opossums I have seen were harboring plenty of ticks. If the lowly opossum is this tick fighting super hero how was it failing to remove the ticks covering its body? Fair warning things are about to get graphic.
The following is one example of an opossum I have caught in a box trap. He was in the wrong area, they learned to open the metal trash cans I use to store chicken feed. Opossums in most of the Midwest are extremely overpopulated and yet there are still plenty of ticks.
Another problem with the opossum overpopulation is that they love eggs and they are also not vegetarians as many people with no experience like to claim. They will kill young birds or anything smaller than themselves. They will also kill your chickens if they can get into the coop, another wild claim by people with no experience is that they are harmless. Anyone living in the country knows opossums are not harmless, they can and do cause problems. One big problem is Opossums carry EPM which is deadly to horses. They also cause problems by preying on Young turkeys and quail as well as eating their eggs.
I have a big problem with people that think they know better than those on the ground spreading false information. People often fail to listen to those that actually know, and common sense is rarely applied to the internet. Again I am not saying we should eliminate the opossum, I don’t think that could be done even if you tried. I am however fine with eliminating them from the general farm yard, yet again that will not happen either, trust me I have tried, there are just to many. So let the city slickers keep their opossums, out here they are a menace. Let me present a more accurate meme:
