Rant

Oh the dreaded ( o)ppossum! I remember them well from my childhood in Australia and they were one of the reasons for driving my mother back to the UK. They would clatter around the roof all night ( we lived in a bungalow) making a terrible noise and their urine would seep through the roof, stain the ceiling and leave a foul smell. Sleep would be impossible.

henetha

It's quite hard to love some creatures when they destroy our gardens. I don't have a lot of trouble except with snails and slugs. But here's a thing, - I went out yesterday evening and when I came home and put the lights on, there was a great big fat slug sitting in the middle of the living room carpet.
How on earth did it get there?

It’s on it’s holidays😁 it thought it had found a nice B&B

Greenfinch

Oh the dreaded ( o)ppossum! I remember them well from my childhood in Australia and they were one of the reasons for driving my mother back to the UK. They would clatter around the roof all night ( we lived in a bungalow) making a terrible noise and their urine would seep through the roof, stain the ceiling and leave a foul smell. Sleep would be impossible.

I think they have special boots. The one that runs across our upstairs decking thuds over at 2 am every night. I actually don’t hate the things, just what they do. They eat anything, even the cat’s food if it is left out. Opossums are the American version of our possums I think. They are a different species, ours are cuter to look at ( naturally) 😀

Opossums and possums are marsupials.
Opossums are North Anpmerica's only marsupial.

Impossibly cute but destructive little varmints!

Oh dear, for an edit button like MN.

Wow! Eating the rhubarb leaves too?

Aww. I would love to have a possum living in my garage.
But then again I hate gardening!

I've never forgiven them for eating all the buds off my roses! My husband used to get them with the shotgun. There was a loud bang followed by a dull thud which was rather awful.
There aren't many about now.

They leave all the weeds, sadly. Very discriminating. They love roses in particular. When we lived in Tasmania they were quite tame and would eat out of our hands but the ones here are not so tame.

farmgran

I've never forgiven them for eating all the buds off my roses! My husband used to get them with the shotgun. There was a loud bang followed by a dull thud which was rather awful.
There aren't many about now.

They're protected in Australia, aren't they?
I'm not sure about America.

Witszend does not like the animals being eaten by other animals, but that is just what we do. Beef,Pork, Chicken etc

But animals do not process and cook their meat first. This is an instinctive self-protection move as raw meat can contain organisms that can make us ill.

Ask Chris Packham to adopt it!

I have two squirrels that visit daily, scout around the garden eat whatever pest is unlucky enough to get in their way. Funnily enough don't really bother with pots, apart from a quick nosey, not much digging in garden either, that's usually down to the birds.

No possums where we are but loads of deer, so only deer-proof plants survive. Interestingly, this includes many wild flowers so we take a live and let live approach and have a wild garden.

We do enjoy seeing the young deer (fawns) in spring and summer.

We also eat plenty of venison because Scotland's forests are being spoiled by a too large population of deer and they need to be culled. This also puts me in favour of the reintroduction of top deer predators such as lynx and wolves.