Before running opossums out of your garden, please reconsider. These odd-looking beasts may seem threatening, but they’re not, really.
While they might hiss and bare their teeth when they see you, they’re just trying to scare you away. They’re actually kind of shy. If you approach, they’re likely to keel over and play dead–hence the term “playing possum”.
If you let them, they can play an important role in your garden by chowing down on snails, grubs, beetles, rats, mice and gophers that might otherwise chow down on your crops or lawn. They also eat ticks, preventing Lyme Disease. The National Wildlife Federation reported in Give Opossums a Break: a study calculated “a single opossum might kill an astonishing 4,000 ticks in a week.”
That said, opossums might take the occasional bite of your tomatoes or corn, and they do have an unfortunate tendency to eat out of the compost heap. Usually though they tend to seek decayed or overripe fruit.
So, before you run off the opossum out of your yard or garden, consider the benefits!
Want to learn more about the opossums and their benefits in the garden?
See these helpful articles:
Give Opossums a Break: Why it makes sense to make way for opossums in your garden from the National Wildlife Federation
Opossums and Gardening: A Few Things to Know from the National Wildlife Federation
I welcome opossums I in my yard. They come up on the back porch to eat leftover cat food. They eat ticks and I am glad.
Like people? Dumb and less true than ever.
I have house with they wrap open the house boards getting inside of house tearing apart ,going the sides and Sleeping into house walls ,ripping the sides of the house damaging ,I don’t want kill them there me crazy,I can hear outside of my window .please can you give ,information,how to get rid them ,without killing them ,male ,female…
Consider a Havahart trap. It will catch then uninjured and you can release them somewhere far away from your home.
From NativeAnimalRescue.org: Can I trap and relocate an opossum that’s in my yard or under my house/deck/garage?
Many people believe that trapping and relocating wildlife is a humane solution to a problem they are having with a “nuisance animal.” It sounds like a good idea, but the sad truth is that live-trapping and relocation rarely ends well for wildlife, nor is it a permanent solution.
Following are reasons that this is not an effective way of dealing with wildlife.
It doesn’t solve the problem. As long as the attractant remains (food, shelter or water) other animals will move in. Removing the source of what is attracting an animal to your yard is a far more efficient way to discourage wildlife in your yard.
Trapping and relocating wildlife creates orphans. You may be removing a mother animal that has helpless babies relying on her return to the den.
A trapped wild animal may injure itself trying to get out of the trap. Teeth, claws and limbs are often broken or injured in an animal’s effort to escape a trap.
Animals moved to another location do not know where the food and water sources are which can result in starvation and death.
The territorial disputes can result in serious injuries and death when a relocated wild animal is placed in the territory of another.
You may inadvertently spread disease by relocating a sick animal to a healthy population.
If you remove an animal out of its territory you have opened up a territory for another to move in. The food and nesting habitat once used by the trapped animal are now available to other animals. If trapping and relocating the animals creates too many voids, pregnancy rates and the number of young born per litter will increase in order to fill the voids and take advantage of the available resources. This ultimately results in a population increase.
Also check out: https://opossumsocietyus.org/faq-opossum/#
Yes, you can trap & move them. It would be wise to also patch & seal up your house to prevent others from moving in.
You won’t create orphans, female possoms tend to always carry their young until they’re ready to branch out on their own & sometimes a little longer.