The Ongoing Battle Between Australians And Possums | Animal Tales

People in Australia's cities can't decide how they feel about their closest neighbors. Their common creatures, the brush-tailed possums. This sort of filthy little critter, in my roof, was not welcome. It's just such an incredibly fulfilling experience to watch how intricate their little group is. Melbourne has become a battlefield between those who love the possums, those who don't, and even the possums themselves. They're not naturally aggressive animals, they're naturally territorial animals. Most of the fights are about territory. So many possums are now living so unnaturally close to each other that their wild behavior is changing. Is there a solution to the possum problem? Australia is the land of the marsupials, and the possums that live here are closely related to kangaroos. They're different animals than the ball-tailed opossums that live in North America. These have prehensile furry tails and no O in their name. The common brush-tailed possum seems to thrive everywhere in Australia, including urban centers. This possum was sitting on my veranda. It was the size of Marlon Brando when he died. Sharing space with the clever, determined possums is difficult for some of Melbourne's human residents. There's a possum in my house! Let me do something! It sounded like Jurassic Park, sounded like a dinosaur from Jurassic Park. Like all native species in Australia, brush-tailed possums are protected. It's even prohibited to relocate them more than 150 feet from where they've decided to nest. We've probably got the highest density of brush-tailed possums per square meter in the country, and that's just crazy because the park cannot support that. One of the possums that lives in Curtain Tail Park is a matriarch named Mumsy. She's at least 14, twice as old as most brush-tailed possums live to be, and she has been given a nest box. Despite her age, she has a brand new baby joey called Buster, and he mostly stays snug in her pouch. Possums love elm trees, and nearby is Scamp, Mumsy's daughter from last year. Claiming personal space is tough for city possums, and the survival rate for newly independent youngsters is low. Scamp will need to be enterprising and tough, like her mother. Local resident Raya Linden does her best to care for the park's possums, ignoring opposition. Mumsy! I have so much respect for Mumsy. She's a survivor. She's unbelievably strong, against the odds. She's lost her tree, she's had a baby every year, managed to rear it. Yeah, she's a good role model for women everywhere, I think. Raya has fed the possums for the last 12 years, bringing fruit and grain nearly every night. The possums in the park also find natural food. They devour the much-loved elms. Residents complain they are killing the very trees that house them. The possum population density in Curtin Park is 10 times more than found anywhere in the wild. Now there are fewer and fewer trees, and youngsters like Scamp struggle to find homes. Most brushtail possums don't travel further than 150 feet from their dens. If she's to survive, she must leave the park and seek shelter elsewhere. Scamp knows nothing about fences, rubbish bins and possum catchers. Some young possums are lucky enough to be rescued by people devoted to protecting wildlife. At the moment, we have got a huge amount of possums coming into here. It's pretty much raining possums. Victoria's Wildlife Rescue Centre sends volunteers out, and sometimes they care for the possums at their own homes. Jodie and Chris have a house full of rescued baby possums, mostly baby busters age. You don't let them have control of the nozzle or the spray, do you? No. Only the luckiest possums end up here. But looking after them is exhausting. Six o'clock feed, clean the cages, home from work, feed them again. And as you feed them, because they're little, you have to take them to the toilet as well, sterilize all the bottles in between feeds. And then there's a nine o'clock feed, a midnight feed, which Chris did, and then I got up and did the 3 a.m. feed. It's quite tiring, but once you get into it, you sort of get into a rhythm, and you're sort of just doing it like a robot. I guess it's just second nature after a while. Jodie and Chris also attempt to reunite rescued babies with their mothers. Mother possums recognize their offspring just by their voice. So we're just trying to get her to call, which means making her a little bit distressed, feeling vulnerable, feeling cold. So she's calling her mum now. So we're hoping that the brushtails that we saw over in that tree there are the parents that have moved off for the night, and that they'll be alerted by her calls and come to investigate. There we go. So with a bit of luck, the mum will be coming back. Just watch yourself. She's starting to get kind of stressed. But no mother possum comes to claim this orphan. Since it is illegal to kill possums, when there's a problem, people call Paul the possum catcher. He doesn't kill the invaders, he just evicts them. A child care center in the city has developed a possum problem. Most mornings, this is our regular routine, is sweeping up the possum poo so the children have a clear yard to play with. We can't just leave things in the morning. We've got lots of little children, and little children put things in their mouths, and we don't want possum poo to be one of the things that they put in their mouths. Now, a possum has eaten its way into the center's roof cavity. The one-way chute that Paul places in the roof will allow the possums to leave during the night, but not get back in. So what I need to do is to encourage him to leave. There's a big surprise. Not one, but two possums escape the roof, and one of them is scamp. Evicted from the center's roof, and with no nest box to move into, scamp is once again homeless. A displaced possum is often a dead possum. So across the city, possum supporters and possum opponents try to find solutions. Most focus on keeping the animals out of human habitats. If you want to wage war on possums, there are about three ways you can do it. The first one's the mechanical way, and, you know, you say, if it's a special tree, band the tree, stop them climbing up, and then you can put protectors on top of your fence. And I've seen that work in a couple of things, but it can make your place look a little bit like Starlake 7-8. Then there's chemical warfare, which is basically the spray on deterrent. The other form of warfare is electronic warfare. They're activated by movement, so you get a strobe light coming on when the possum comes past, you get a high-pitched ultrasonic signal, which is a deterrent to pretty much all animals that can hear it. Passive infrared, ultrasonic, sonic, flashing strobe, safe, convenient, versatile, effective, humane, you know, it does everything, well, according to the box. People even try to scare them away with plastic owls. But the possums are too smart for any of these tricks. Since her eviction from the child care center's roof, Scamp has been living on the streets. Between cats and cars, the odds are stacking up against her, and she's getting increasingly unpopular in the neighborhood. Homeless possums are problem possums, but they are incredibly resourceful. Possums can flatten their body to squeeze into holes smaller than a tennis ball, and a gap under someone's roof opens up an opportunity for Scamp. It's possum paradise, and for now, it's hers. But some are determined to reduce the possum population. The city of Yarra is looking for a new approach where possums will be caught, implanted with a contraceptive chip, and then released. This would be a drastic change for Curtin Park's possums. Mumsy's baby, Buster, is now five months old and clings to her back with his human-like hands and opposable thumbs. Over the next month, Buster will alternate between the security of Mumsy's pouch and learning the skills needed to survive in the city. Buster is becoming independent, venturing a little further each day. Buster, Mumsy's 12th baby, will be leaving home soon, and if the possums here get contraceptive implants, he'll be her last.