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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."
Based on my experience, automobiles seem to work wonders on these things. Clearly, we just need to bring in more automobiles to New York.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Just tell the hipsters in Brooklyn that it's totally ironic to wear live Opossums on their heads. Kill two birds with one stone.
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Just bring in a colony of ferocious lions to eat the possums. When the lions become a problem, bring in gorillas to fight the lions. Then in winter the cold will kill the gorillas. Problem solved!
Did they learn nothing from the story of the old lady who swallowed a fly?
Poor thing. I hear she died.
Those who have telepathy have no need to RTFA.
We had to deal with a bold, insane, possibly rabid raccoon on the front porch last week. Believe me, it's scary when the wild animals decide they're not afraid of you at all.
The Opossum's most effective predator is the Reticulated Gap-Toothed Yokel.
They're not liable to freeze to death, but they'll likely get killed off by wandering into traffic while looking up at them big tall buildings.
Seriously though, no one in their right mind down here would try to destroy a rat problem with a possum problem. Matter of fact, anyone that doesn't call them 'possum' doesn't really have any experience with the nasty things. The 'opossum' is about one of the nastiest animals I have ever had the displeasure of looking at. We get them in the garbage can every now and then... They get stuck and can't get out if there's not enough in the can for them to climb out. I usually just leave them there and let the trash man take care of them. I've poked at them a little bit and they just show their teeth and hiss. I've never seen them play dead. They're about the #2 roadkill item around here, after armadillo...
So New York, I hear that badgers eat possum... interested?
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
That's a mighty nice soapbox you have there.
With a stick and some string, you'd have an even better possum trap.
Bring in alligators to eat the opossum, and then in the winter, they'll all freeze to death.
A friend keeps singing a song to her kid about an alligator going snap. I keep telling her she'll need liquid oxygen to achieve that, but I don't think she's got the message.
Maybe I have the benefit of experience, having lived in the south and all, but WHO WOULD BE SO F#$%ING STUPID AS TO USE POSSUMS FOR PEST CONTROL?
The damn things are like the mammalian answer to cockroaches. If they didn't have typical mammalian susceptibility to radiation, odds on them among southerners would be 10:1, their favor against roaches to survive a nuclear holocaust by eating the remaining roaches and being the last species standing.
HA HA!
I know this is Idle, but still.
Newspapers: New York Times, Washington Post.
Tabloids: New York Post, Washington Times.
If this is a real story, is there a real paper carrying it somewhere?
Sort of, here's a United Press International feed: http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2010/09/19/Immigrant-opossums-adapt-to-Brooklyn/UPI-90141284911712/
"Flame away, I wear asbestos underwear"
Their unspecialized biology, flexible diet and reproductive strategy make them successful colonizers and survivors in diverse locations and conditions.
If they had just read the first two paragraphs in wikipedia, they'd know possums don't just "die off" after there's no more rats.
Opossum's are particularly resistant to rabies due to a low body temperature+environment. That's just FUD sensationalism.
Don't badmouth the opossum like that.
Often wrong but never in doubt.
I am Jack9.
Everyone knows me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marsupial A marsupial is a mammal.
Are you asking the possum? or the person cooking it?
I am a bit puzzled why someone assumed that opossums in an urban environment, surrounded by garbage (which tends to just sit there), would instead take the trouble to hunt rats (which generally do not).
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That'd be "Rippy the gator" by the Arrogant Worms.
Yeah, they are pretty amazing and spunky little dogs. My Grandfather got her for me when I told him about my rat problem. He got her directly from a breeder that had come to the states from Germany and knew the proper way to raise and train them. First time we brought her home we opened up a cabinet, watched her bolt inside and come out with a dead rat less than a minute later. That dog was never happier than when she was chasing and killing vermin.
She's the only dog that I ever saw kill a skunk without getting sprayed too. Of course it rained the next day and she went outside and rolled all over the dead body. The only smell that's worse than skunk is dead skunk combined with wet dog....
I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
The whole idea is almost mind-bogglingly dumb. Where did they get the idea that possums would eat rats? They mostly eat carrion and bugs.
Maybe for their next trick they can introduce a herd of cows... you know, to eat the possums.
Had it a couple of times, stewed and roasted. Not very good and gamy. I prefer squirrel or rabbit. But down here in NC and where a lot of my kin live in KY, you ate what was available. Least we aint like the koreans and such who eat dogs, or chinese, who eat anything that fails to get away.
New York City is one of the two places in the United States that outlaws ferrets (the other being California, but that is changing). And ferrets are great ratters and mousers. They were widely bred and kept here in the US prior to WW II, for just that purpose: keeping down the mice and rats at farms. And they also make great pets.
Further, NOWHERE in the Western Hemisphere are there any feral colonies of the domestic variety of ferret. They just don't survive well here outside of captivity.
So New York, in its "infinite wisdom" (pardon the sarcasm), outlaws ferrets but imports possums, which ARE known to breed in the wild and form feral colonies.
Yet another reason I don't live in New York. Its leadership has made many decisions of this quality.
"You ever seen a NYC sewer rat, son?"
Sure, they are always on the news. It seems they congregate mainly at Wall Street and wear pin-striped suits. I agree that they are (a) scary and (b) need to be exterminated as a threat to health. /sarcasm
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