This roadkilled opossum is likely to rot until the carrion birds show up.
The only things I’ve seen that will eat an opossum are owls, corvids, turkey vultures, and hillbillies.
I’ve seen opossum carcasses lie in open fields where foxes and coyotes frequent, and they don’t touch them. I keep reading that foxes and coyotes eat them, but I’ve not seen it. Dogs will kill them, but that’s all they will do.
I’ve heard of coyotes raiding opossums stealing opossums from leg hold traps.
I’ve not seen it.
If a human wants to eat one, the old advice is rather simple. Keep the ‘possum in a cage for a few weeks and feed it table scraps. That way it gets rid of any taint that the animal obtained from eating unsavory food in the wild. These animals are opportunists. I remember hearing stories bout finding several of them inside the carcasses of deer or cattle, which the opossums had moved into as both a food source and shelter.
When an opossum dies, it usually rots until the turkey vultures show up. And then they eat it. They aren’t as picky as dogs, foxes, and coyotes are.
Horned owls do take a lot of opossums. They are just the right size for this species of eagle owl, which is also known for eating skunks.
Opossums are like us in a weird way. We are both tropical species living in a colder environment. We have adapted to these conditions by becoming smarter and eating a lot of different things. They have adapted to these conditions by producing lots of offspring , so even if some of them freeze to death in the winter, are eaten by owls, or hit by cars, there will be enough to replenish their numbers. They are a classic r-selection species, while we are the ultimate K-selection species.
Back in the 80′s my girlfriend and I went to a local “soul food” butcher in New Haven, Ct and bought a possum to eat. We used a recipe for rabbit that involved a looooong soak in brine and vinegar to make a dish that we called possum-pfeffer.
I think it was the second worst tasting meal I’ve ever had.
I have to ask. Then what was the worst?
Gotcha!
The worst was an Chinese dish we tried that called for heating fermented shrimp paste in wok. The smell was so bad we had to run outside with the wok and bury the contents in the back yard. Technically, I never tasted it, but still……
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_PGvSoaafXiI/SONHncxF6YI/AAAAAAAAEOE/ddJ7IScNGHM/s400/posssums-for-sale-1916-NYC.jpg
You used to be able to buy opossums at open air markets in NYC.
So they aren’t necessarily a “hillbilly” food.
However, I don’t know of anyone who actually eat them.
All I have is that advice to feed them table scraps for a few weeks to get rid of that “scavenger taint.”
Yeah? Why not to build greenway tunnels under the motorways, so these kind of items won’t be discussed so often anymore. (Wonder if have those tunnels, there US?)
We have those tunnels, but they are mainly in conservation areas.
Opossums are really stupid animals. They like to hang out in the middle of the road and eat road kill.
The oldest one on record was 3 years old. Normally, they don’t survive a year.
And yet their range continues to go north into Canada. They pop up in Quebec and Ontario well north of where they are supposed to be.
I am in farm/Amish country in Michigan, plenty of coyote tracks. My German Shepherd just sent a creature to possum heaven. I put it out on the snow as I always do and there it will stay for months.You are dead on the coyote want nothing to do with it. Even the crow pass on it.Served up fresh but no takers. Put anything else out there and it is gone.
You’d be amazed at how common these animals are. We’d have half our national budget in tunnels!
Funny how I will gladly eat fresh crab, but opossum sounds nasty.
Not all scavengers are created equal, I guess.
I am particularly fond of Alaskan snow crab– and I want Ms. Palin’s husband to catch tons of them.
This goes into politsics, but I wish Obama hadn’t supported the car industry that much. I think many people actually don’t love their cars and every-day driving, and that is then the question of infrastructure, how to build natural home and working place-continuums. Also, a car oe two don’t make a family a lovely warm unity, as the adds try to tell us. Controversally, that’s typically the point where the problems begin.
It’s a big country, a big world, but still we are local animals. And, driving a highway at the speed of 130 km/h isn’t nothing more than the picture of a jerk who still believes in the free world – while acting controversally to that idea.
So, opossums are something like rats, I got. Funnylooking guys to me. But I doubt the tool you use to measure their intelligence. When, also eldery people get injured and killed by cars. Kids too. Cyclistics, too. Everyday, hundereds or thousands, do you know? That’s because they are not so clever, when they play in the street, or walk or bike almost anywhere. So, if a car gets too near, it’s “sorry, but you are too stupid, and I was doing the right thing”. Odd.
Here in nothern Europe, if one drives the biggest motorway, one sees tens of foxes, badgers, hedgehogs, small deers, cats and even birds overdriven. I’m no greenman from Mars. But strongly suggest that the way we use our machines towards the other kind of animal cultures and their environment, is really not clever.
Actually opossums have brains that are smaller than any other animal of their size. They are about the size of a cat, but their brains are the size of a walnut.
They are the only marsupials north of the Rio Grande (Rio Brave del Norte). They also live in Canada (the southern tier of Canada), and their range continues to expand in that country.
I have eaten a few possums and found them to be quite delicious, anyone who eschews the flesh of this delicious marsupial because is is an “opportunist” in its eating habits should think twice before ever dining on free range chicken or crab. Crabs are the vultures of the ocean and consider anything that has died and sunk to the bottom “haute cuisine”. A chicken will eat virtually anything.
All I can say is that in West Virginia, if you eat one of these, you will be laughed out of town.
Eating raccoon, though, doesn’t get the same response.
Hell, I’ve even seen coyote on the menu at “critter dinners.” And that’s just a wild, cat-eating dog.
I personally prefer ruffed grouse and gray squirrels as wild game table fare, but I also am partial to the snapping turtle.
You know, it’s really interesting that if you look at the Kosher laws, the animals you’re not supposed to eat are scavengers. Of course, we don’t keep Kosher at all.
Also, I’ve seen chickens eat the left overs from a chicken dinner!
What an appropriate day to be contemplating cultural eating habits.
Around here, even in the really rural areas, eating squirrel, possum, or racoon would be considered equally eccentric.
Gray squirrels are now on the menu of virtually every fine British restaurant: http://retrieverman.wordpress.com/2009/01/09/british-gentry-now-eating-a-west-virginia-staple-gray-squirrel/
The only carnivores we eat with great regularity are fish, very few large fish bother with vegetable matter at all.
EWWWWWWWWWWWWWW NASTY NOBODY WANT 2 C DAT UGLY THING IT LOOKS LIKE JUSTIN!!!!!!!!!