Police report attempt to revive flattened opossum

(CNN) -- A Pennsylvania man attempted to resuscitate "a road-killed opossum," state police say.

But this was one possum who wasn't playing possum -- the ugly creature remained dead.

Troopers responding to the scene in Oliver Township on Thursday determined that Donald J. Wolfe, 55, of Brookville, was drunk, according to the police report.

Several witnesses observed Wolfe's failed resurrection of the flattened marsupial, police said. It was not immediately clear how he endeavored to restore the possum's life.

The arresting officer in the incident was unavailable for comment Friday. Attempts to reach Wolfe were also unsuccessful.

Wolfe will be charged with one charge of public drunkenness, police said.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/03/26/opossum.drunk/index.html?hpt=T2

Wow mouth to mouth with a opposum. Has anyone ever seen what they eat not to mention this thing was a dead road kill! I once put a putrid oozing trout in a live trap and the trapped opossum ate every drop!

Thank you for that!

Hey buddy "hold my beer and Watch this"
I nhave never seen one in real life but seeing them on TV gives me enough visual to realize you shound't make out with one.

Blair, be thankful there are no possums in Canada. You aren't missing out on anything!

I have a couple possums stories from work myself, but I may offend some sensitive readers so I'll keep them to myself.

I believe that I can honestly state that I've never been drunk enough to want to resuscitate a possum. Seems like this could be a good beer commercial.

When I was younger I once woke up and was being resuscitated by a possum.

Wow, that actually answers a few questions that I had about you.

Are you sure it was only trying to resuscitate you?

That's how the police report read...

Well in that case I guess it could be true.

Man that possum had to be really, really drunk.

By the way, has anybody seen my cat?

That's too funny Bruce!

All I know as my last normally mild mannered dog absolutely hated them. One day we were headed out the door for a walk and there was one standing there. In seconds she grabbed a hold of it and had it's neck snapped. Wow!

Scot (Esshup) says they make great pets. Scot?

Cecil:

I've got a couple of tame ones here that have been visiting the deer that died by the pond about 3 weeks ago. When do you want me to drop them off? The pair of red fox that have been visiting have been a bit more skittish.

Was granny the REAL Possum Queen?








Opossums were the drug of choice back then;, they just kept it secret!

I might get Moderated

My friend in college ran a trap line and caught a mother possum with babies that were well developed much more so than most he caught with babies. She had 5 and we bottle fed them and somehow 2 survived. He kept one and I kept one. I can say they are pretty much just like cats. They can be taught to use a litter box like a cat and are a bit more social than the average cat. They will eat anything! My possum lived 6 years before it died of unknown causes. His lived to be 8.

So the opossum died?!? Man, I bet it would have lived if the dude was sober.

thank goodness it was only resuscitation

There's usually more to these kind of stories but we will probably never know.

'cept escapees and the Virginia Opossum that makes it to Southern Ontario. Saw a road-killed one a few weeks ago near Oshawa,ON. Yep, even had to go back and take a second look as I have never seen one before. They aren't pretty when schmucked... although not so pretty alive either it seems. I wasn't drunk enough to kiss it.

I knew they have slowly been spreading north over the last few decades but I didn't realize they've made it to Canada... Back in the 1800's, they didn't range any further north than the Mason-Dixon Line.

I've seen several here in Minneapolis, so there's no reason that they couldn't survive in most of the continental US.

Wait until the feral hogs make it North. They're a real trip.

I think Pennsylvania via the PGC and the dept of Agriculture did a good job of cleaning them out of PA. Where there used to be thousands and sign all over, no one is seeing them anymore...

A friend of mine in MO hunts w/ dogs, and apparently there is a BIG warning about how to deal with Sus Scrofa if you shoot & kill one. Keep the dogs out of it, wear gloves while handling it, bury it in a plastic bag and mark the burial spot, call DNR and tell them where you put it, etc etc etc. I guess they carry all kinds of exotic distemper & other diseases, as well as just the general nastiness of a dead pig.

the eurasian wild boar is a BIG deal here, trying to keep them from getting any farther north, @ least.
-skinny

bovine tuberculosis....that's the other one....sorry, brain fart.

Wait until Bigfoot makes it south.

ZING!
well played, Cecil, well played.

Cecil, we have had Bigfoot sightings around Lake Texoma.

Since Lusk went on a diet, the reports have slowed a lot.

We have feral hogs up here, a number of BigFoot that frequent night clubs, but I guess I am too late for the possum party!



-----

Heck I live here and neither did I, until I looked it up I assumed it was a runaway pet. ; )

They really are ugly.

Soooo.... you can't eat them?

no clue if you can eat them or not, i'm not a hunter, and neither did i get this warning first hand. I think it has more to do with letting your dogs or livestock get into them for fear of transmitting the diseases they carry. Cooked bacon is cooked bacon, i would think. but....i wouldn't know either.

You can eat them...(they taste yummy!) You just have to make sure they are fully cooked, as in 160 degrees throughout. Feral swine can carry a host of nasties, so you wanna make sure they are dead before eating. Those nasties can also be transmitted while field dressing them, hence the recommendation of using gloves while field dressing them.

I've eaten them but don't think they're all that great. Good pork is pretty cheap at the store.

Up here, we consider them to be delicacy "soft-shell armadillo." A little Old Bay goes a long way.

Somewhere here on the Pond Boss forum, I'm sure I have posted several good roadkill possum recipes. My favorite is possum BBQ. I can't find it. I guess I've been moderated by someone with a weak stomach.

My fiance has a job surveying roadkill - don't ask me why that is paid for, the best answer i've ever gotten about it had something to do with monitoring migratory species in the area....i guess cars are a universal killer? - i got her an opossum cookbook once. She didn't think it was all that funny. I got a good chuckle out of it though.

In 30 years of preparing tax returns I've seen some unusual occupations. Road Kill Surveyor (Road Kill Engineer?) has got to be up there in the top 20. Please note, I'm not in any way making fun of your fiance.

Please do.

it's more of an internship or paid assistant-ship than a job, really. Again, there are reasons that i don't understand (damn science-talk)..but yeah, i guess they can tell what is passing through any given area at what times of year by monitoring the roadkill surveys. They can also then monitor the effect that like, county guys mowing the shoulders of the road and other small biogeographical changes have in the short term - you'd be surprised what little things like that do to a biome....the lawnmower example...it chases the toads out into the road, so you get an idea of what kinds of toads live in the area, then while the grass is short you get all the toad-hunting birds, lizards and small mammals, etc etc etc.

Although it is disgusting....it is an interesting study.

wait a minute........didn't even crack the top 10? now i'm interested, JHAP, what is your top couple of oddjobs?

Sorry to break the accounting chain:

Well keep in mind I said "unusual occupations" and by that I just meant not a standard job. And perhaps I was being too stingy not having your fiance's job break into the top 10. But here are few client's occupations that I felt were unusual.

One client (moved away so is no longer a client) was an Orca trainer at San Diego's Sea World. She spent her days in the tanks with the killer whales. Recent news events would tell you this can be quite a dangerous profession.

Another former client (passed away a number of years ago) was a marine wild life spotter. He owned a Partenavia Observer air plane. He started off working for a bait company assisting in spotting schools of bait in the Pacific. He was then contacted by Scripps Institute of Oceanography and while spotting for bait he began logging sitings of various marine wildlife (sharks, whales, etc). His plane looked like this... a section of the bottom is entirely made of glass so the pilot can view downward. (Note: this is just a photo I found on the internet).


I have a client that breeds exotic birds. Now I'm not talking about the standard fare of exotic birds like parrots (although he does breed Macaws as well and has a breeding pair of Haycinth Macaws that collectively are worth a fortune) but he specializes in rare raptors that are bred for zoos.

Another of my clients is a grower of rare orchids. He travels about the world collecting some of the more unusual species. He has green houses full of these orchids. Occasionally JWHAP and I go to his location just to walk through the green houses - it's like walking into a rain forest - climate controlled and kept at a balmy temperature. His orchid collection is quite literally worth millions.

One of my clients is a game artist for Sony. He has created several characters that are used in Sony Play Station games. He spends his day drawing and animating game characters. His art work is unreal - quite a talented individual.

Perhaps not particularly weird professions but not the standard 8 to 5 jobs either.

JHAP -- As you well know, not all CPAs and accountants have similar experiences and clients. Some are far more interesting than others.

Many years ago when Lynda was doing her CPA internship, one of her duties was income tax returns. We lived in a predominantly rural area that abutted a growing Washington DC suburb, with many of the new comers ("come here's" as the old families called us) coming from the big cities of the North East.

One afternoon, she could hear that the conversation in the next cubical wasn't going well between a young Eastern socialite who was trying to do the taxes for a very hardened and elderly Southern belle. It started with a discussion about subsidies, CRP, etc. It degraded into a difficult livestock discussion (think PETA), and finally to the young lady asking the mature belle if they had butchered or sold the bush hog they acquired about the same time they got their spring piglets, new heifers, and young steers.

Lynda and I became good friends with the Southern Belle (rest her soul) and her now 89 YO husband. We still laugh and recall the story every time I have to weld a piece back on my "bush hog".

More than once I've felt that my bush hog has become something pretty akin to road kill. Sober, or otherwise, I've never given it mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. But, so far, I've not completely butchered that poor bush hog.

Ken,

When was at Indiana University, there was a girl from NYC there. Someone made the comment that they had seen some deer on the north side of Bloomington as they were driving in. Her reply was, "Someone better contact the local zoo to get them back inside!"

Northern NY is not exactly city. More wild than anywhere in
Indiana. I am not a NY native, but lets not get too high on our horse.

Quote:

"Why do hunters like to kill animals? Why don't they buy store meat where no animals were hurt to make it?
Killing is bad, so why don't hunters just buy store meat that's made without hurting animals? Does it taste different?"

I can't find the actual ad in the paper, but everyone fell off their chairs when I showed it to them. I did have a .jpg of it. This was about the same jist.





OOPS:

Announcer: "Bud Light salutes you, Mr. Dead Opossum CPR Giver!"

Background vocalist: "I thought he was faking!"

Really Good Todd! That will probably ring in my head for a while

Easy my fellow Hoosier. I know that. I said NYC. New York City.