Friday, August 15, 2008

How smart are possums?

Here's a little naturalistic observation I am conducting. At my home we have a racoon problem. Racoons in my pleasant suburban neighborhood have been raiding garbage cans for a while, but recently one or more began scraping away at the shingles on our roof, causing rain leaks which damaged our ceiling. It got so bad that we recently reshingled the hourse.

I have placed a live animal trap in the yard, near where we store the garbage cans. My hope is that we can humanely capture the critter and release him or her in a more rural area.

So far, we have captured the cat from next door and the same possum twice. (I think it's the same possum - I claim no expertise in possum diffentiation, but they look like the same to me.)

My prediction is that we won't capture the cat again. Cats are pretty smart and learn quickly. I predict we will capture the possum again. I don't think possums learn as quickly as cats. I think racoons are really smart and I'm not confident we'll ever catch the racoon.

I'll keep you posted.

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