White as an Angel
Another white possum!
This is the second one this year! Leucism is an abnormal pigmentation similar to albinism, the main difference being the eye color. She came in with her siblings cold and stinky. They were warmed and fed and antibiotics on board. We are optimistic about their recovery ❤️🩹
16 replies
I bet it's all just a disguise and she's really a sneaky little twerp. gets into everything and has no regrets.
and gets away with it, with that face of hers.
I'm all about the opossum mischief 😈
“The Oppossum Possy rides again screeEeEeEEEEEeeee!!!!!!”
(lol. I’d join that biker gang,)
Opossum Possyyyy! Hissssssss!
I'm glad you like her 😂
Oh, I thought he was a rat till I saw what sublemmy this was.
So cute! I like both opossums and rats.
If we can have fancy rats, we should be able to have fancy opossums as well!
From cold and stinky to warm and cozy! Love seeing such a beauty!
She is so pretty (though probably still a bit stinky 😉).
I met a binturong the other day, amongst some other cool animals, and I got to observe their legendary popcorn smell. The source of the smell isn't my fav, but by far the best smelling wild animal. Now I keep thinking why can't my precious opossums smell anything like this?! 😁
I had a good day with my guys this weekend. I got to put granny opossum outside so she can move around.
And a little one we've had with some weird condition (red skin, kinda dry skin feeling, and originally had like ¼ the fur all the other guys its age had) is now looking really good and fuzzy. Skin still a bit dry, but so much better than when it first came in.
I think our opossum season is about over, since they're the only 2 I noticed, but I had such a great time with them this year.
I’m so glad you had a great time with them! Are there any particular animals that tend to come in in the fall? I’m guessing it’s not baby season for anyone, so is it just random injured animals?
And the binturong sounds very cool! You meet the best animals!
Right now, most animals are wrapping up. The last 2-3 weeks, we'd have most babies cleared out, and we had more time to work on misc clinic things. But over the last week or so, now we are in the second squirrel season and went from almost zero squirrels back to 100+, since they will often breed twice a year, so we got our butts kicked this weekend. We also were taking in quite a few bunnies.
Volunteer season will be wrapping up around the end of September when the last of these babies become releasable. As volunteers, most of us are just Apr-Sep, as that is the complete baby boom for everyone.
We do keep a handful of people in the off season. I was tempted to do it last year, but between the 3 rabies shot appointments, my wedding/honeymoon, and I normally take a vacation in December, and I had one planned in January, I just want going to be around for most weekends last year, so I do know too much about what goes on, but it will be mainly adult animals. I'm not sure how much I'd get to interact with them, as volunteers normally get babies almost exclusively, one, because they are cuter and more enticing to get people to help, and two, their wildness hasn't kicked in 100% so they are easier to handle and less physically dangerous to untrained people.
They have been giving me more time with some adults, like granny opossum and an adult Great Horned Owl, since I'm not new anymore and have demonstrated reasonable competence so far, so who knows.
I'm tempted to try it this off season, especially if I ever actually remember to check my rabies titer. I just worry about getting stuck in cleaning and maintenance stuff. I go there to avoid doing that stuff at home! 😉
Binturong was kinda cool, but he was a very old man, and just was curled up sleeping. Feeding the red panda was amazing, I'd wanted to do that for like 15 years, and we fed the lemur too, and he was pleasantly delightful as well. I hadn't expected to do either of those. I didn't get too up close to their owls, but they weren't far away and had some neat stories. The one was born in 1982 and still looks good, all considered.
100+ squirrels is insane!
Makes sense that you don't need as many people in the off season... I hope you find the right balance and have fun outside this amazing volunteer gig as well. Thank you, as always, for amazing stories!
It's my pleasure to share them. I still find it such a surprise how easy it was to get into all of this and how rewarding it all feels.