A Summer Animal Story

My friend Joebing Malabanan told me to watch out for storks, raccoons and other animals when I proudly told him about the koi pond that I built in my backyard. Joebing is a general contractor who has built ponds and knows what he's talking about. He knows that koi ponds, eventually will attract fish predators.

One late afternoon after feeding the fish and the two turtles in our pond, I left the canisters of food pellets on a table in my patio. The following morning they were gone. A few pellets were scattered all over the place. I found the empty cardboard and metal canisters in one corner of our backyard, all crumpled and full of scratches.

I also found out that some potted aquatic plants were lifted from the pond and were scattered near the water edge, a tell-tale sign that a creature indeed was after the fish and the turtles in our pond. Whatever it was, it must have been a large animal. I was quick to assume that the next door neighbor's cat was responsible, knowing that the cat frequently roams our backyard.

But it happened during the night. The pet cat was probably back in its home next door sleeping. Certainly it's not a stork in the middle of the night. So it had to be a nocturnal animal. Like a raccoon.

I had problems with raccoons before when we were living in Illinois. They were nasty and bothersome. I spent a lot of time and money to get rid of the raccoons that invaded our property. It got so bad that a family raccoons settled inside the ceiling of out house. I surely don't want to go through that trouble again here in California.

So I went online and bought one of those large animal traps from eBay for $39.95 including shipping. It came via UPS after a couple of days, set it up in our patio using a piece of left-over pizza for bait. I checked it the following morning. Nothing. The trap was still set up the way I left it the night before.The stale pizza was still there.

What I did next the following night was to sprinkle a trail of fish and turtle pellets on the patio floor leading to the trap. I checked it the following morning. It worked! We got a trapped animal. It's not a raccoon.

It was an opossum!

It looked young but large, a full grown seemingly healthy creature with nice fur, black set of ears, black round eyes with pink nose and toes. It's only slightly smaller than our neighbor's cat.

I was ready to release the trapped opossum inside a forest preserve some distance from our home but Ampy thought we should consult with the forest ranger to make sure that we do the proper procedure in humanely getting rid of the animal. So we went to Lytle Creek Ranger station about 10 miles away. The ranger said: "It's not our jurisdiction, sir. You should talk to the Fish and Wildlife Department. They will tell you what to do. She then handed me the phone number that she quickly scribbled on a piece of paper.

The person at the F&WD said I should get permission from the owners of the land where I intend to let the opossum loose before doing it or else that will be considered littering. She then added: "Or why don't you just kill it?"

I am not much of an animal lover but I just don't want to kill a helpless captive animal. I could not believe somebody from Fish & Wildlife would bluntly tell me to "just kill it".

We ended up releasing the opossum out into a roadside forest near a creek in some remote area. I later learned that the Dept. of Agriculture that owns most of the land charges $10.00 per animal that you release into the wild. We know a lady friend in the area who trapped 9 opossums in one summer.