Brooklyn's Latest Threat: Opossums

Our future? I Am Opossum

Move over rabid raccoons, there's a new four-legged fiend terrorizing Brooklynites! After we mentioned a opossum sighting in Cobble Hill yesterday, Courier-Life has found out that opossums have been attacking the borough's gardens, dogs, and teenage girls!

Community Board 11 member Marnee Elias-Pavia's 13-year-old daughter nearly ran into oncoming traffic after spotting the animals's terrifyingly large nose in Dyker Heights. Wild opossums have also been spotted in Prospect Park, Bay Ridge, and Fort Hamilton; a Coney Island councilmember blames the city for the growing population, saying that when a rat problem took over Marine Park and Gerritsen Beach they brought in opossums to take care of them. Now in some sick Stephen King-eque twist, the population has grown even though they weren't supposed to be able to reproduce—and as one expert says, their pregnancies are quick "like a bowel movement."

So are we headed towards an opossum takeover? Probably! These nocturnal animals are killing machines—one gardener in Carroll Park says she found dead pigeons and mutilated squirrel bodies* scattered about recently. And once they get infected with The Rabies, not even Will Smith will be able to save us.

*Turns out this was likely the handiwork of a raccoon.

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By Jen Carlson in News on March 9, 2010 3:54 PM

Comments [rss]

Gotham User

Gotta agree with the people saying that those opossums were always there. The city government may be behind a lot of goofy stuff, but they haven't planted possums in Brooklyn any more than they released bedbugs into Soho. Opossums can swim, they can climb over any obstacle, they'll eat anything and they can live in any hole they can find. Possums will have a dozen babies at a time. There's no way there's anything behind these sightings than a few people freaked out by encountering something different. Possums are pretty dumb, though, and I'm guessing it's the rats that keep the opossum population down, rather than the other way around.

Joe

This isn't a surprise, they're all over the place - in parks and less densely populated parts of the city. Used to see them a lot in Flushing as a kid.

Killing machines? No way. They're very frightened of people. And I don't really see a problem if they kill squirrels or pigeons, which I doubt they do - they just eat garbage.

ArtItUp

I've heard that they taste good. Why not turn them into a new food source? :P

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Earthdog

Opossums have been a common sight on Staten Island for years now. Ditto for Raccoons as well.

Kelles

Umm... are you sure these animals are killing machines? I think they just act like they are dead when they are frightened

xgeyiph772

Used to live on 7th Ave near Dyker Beach Golf Course, and would come home not only to find racoons and opossums fighting over scraps in the garbage pails behind the house, but once found a goose sitting on my front steps like it owned the place. Damn thing wouldn't move either. Had to move to Staten Island to get away from all the wildlife!

sowhtifithppnsitwll

I am in Sheepshead bay. Last summer we had one in a neighbors backyard living in a pile of wood. Five years ago there was a family of them living on Kimball Street (near Kings Plaza) with the golf course full of them. They are all over Marine Park, Gerritsen Beach and Gravesend.

nicemarmot

Oh for God's sake. 'Possums are like raccoons, they live just about everywhere they can eat people's garbage. How long till the crazy bird-feeding people start trying to feed the "cute little possums" too?

chuzzlewit

mmmm - 'possum. the other orange meat.

DarkGemini

Would just like to point out that these are Opossums, and not Possums.

A Possum is a different animal, native to Australia, and not North America.

That said, these things are definitely Queens. Have been for some time now.

Spirit of 76

Possum on a gum bush! Y'all tellin they been wrong all these years down 'round Hazzard county? Well, sheeeooot. I reckon I gotta stop gettin' my learnin' from them TV shows.

DanielJ

Is there a difference between a possum and opossum?

Your end was the road

SadTrombone

The opossum is Irish

jaycjay

Opossums. Or even 'possums. Scientific name, Didelphimorphia. Possums are the unrelated Phalangeridae, found in Australia.

This is a possum. The difference is obvious:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/photolaps/3947202737/

Troy

Must be a slow news day bcause this attempt at levitity is badly written with and conveys little about the native wildlife that has always been around us.

ShIIIITT, They had rabbits, possums and Raccoons in Prospect Park from before they made that rancid lake, in the 70's and 80s the homeless populations had to share the park with such creatures and now the wanna be hipster NYer thinks it is so funny that these beingz trod along still in Brooklyn...

Suprised much? get ova it you underfed common sense lacking transplants....take a friggin hike...in prospect park and do a litle tracking, sheeesh....& suddenly. "wow I thought I saw a snake" ....fools...

chlyn

Apparently the only thing missing from NYC is Troy's sense of humor.

BDS=(Boycott.Divest.Sanction)

great pic. haha

Wza

lol..agreed!

MT

Hasn't NYC pretty much always had opossums? I remember finding one in a garbage can when I was kid and we made a pet for God's sake. My dad built it a cage and we named it Wednesday (we found it on a Wednesday). That thing lived for years in our living room and never exhibited any signs of wanting to rip our throats out.