Opossums Overrun Brooklyn, Fail To Eliminate Rats

__roo writes "In a bizarre case of life imitates the Simpsons, New York City officials introduced a population of opossums into Brooklyn parks and under the boardwalk at Coney Island, apparently convinced that the opossums would eat all of the rats in the borough and then conveniently die of starvation. Several years later, the opossums have not only failed to eliminate the rat epidemic from New York City, but they have thrived, turning into a sharp-toothed, foul-odored epidemic of their own."

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Re:Wild Animals Should Stay In the Wild

[Tuidjy]

One night I got a call from my wife - she met some beasty on the path from the complex's gate to the apartment's front door, and the stupid thing stood its ground, got on its two hind legs, and started waving its paws and hissing at her. Something had been clawing our cat, so I was feeling pretty murderous - I took my recurve, and two arrows and went to see what was what.

It was a oversized raccoon, and it was really standing its ground - it could have ran in the bushes or through the pool's fence, but did not, even though we were on both sides of it. I was afraid I would miss it (I had never shot my bow at anything but targets) so I made my wife go back to the car, i.e. out of the line of fire. I'm glad I did, because the arrow went clean through the raccoon, bounced off the concrete path, and took out a finger worth of wood from a wall. I realize now it was a damn stupid thing to do, as I had really underestimated what my bow could do.

Shooting a gun in the same situation seem even more irresponsible - the bullet may just go through the critter, and end up into one of your neighbors.

In any case, we called animal control, and I got a sermon from the Sheriff deputy about firing the bow inside the apartment complex. She said that she could have brought me in front of a judge for it, but she let it slide.

Two days later, the animal control people wanted to check both me and my wife for scratches - the raccoon turned out to have been rabid... I guess we were both very lucky that night, despite doing so many things wrong - she stood nearby when she should have gone back to the car, I came up on the raccoon and could have scared it into attacking her, and then I shot a 65 pound bow in the middle of a bunch of dry wall buildings.