Poor Possum

Today I helped a baby brushtail possum meet his maker. :-(

As I went out my back door to put some washing on the line, I was rather startled to see what I thought was a dead possum lying in the bright sunlight on the concrete outside my door. As I was contemplating how best to dispose of the poor creature, I noticed an ear twitch, and then looked more closely and realised he was breathing.

The poor baby (because he was quite a youngster and very small) was in a bad way, blind and with some kind of injury to his head, and his breathing was laboured and raspy. I tried to move him onto a flat cardboard box so I could slide him into the shade, but when I touched him, he got up and started walking around in circles rather dazedly, and ended up making his way to lie down again against the wall under my clothes line. So I then propped a box against the wall, making a shelter for him to protect from the heat of the sun.

A dash inside to the computer, a quick search looking for a phone number for a wildlife agency (tried for WIRES, but realised that must be specific to NSW), and eventually found the number for Wildlife Victoria's 24 hour rescue Wildline.

Within an hour (and after some advice to wrap the possum in a blanket and put him in a box inside the laundry for protection) a volunteer from Wildlife Victoria arrived to take him away to a vet. She confirmed my fears that the poor possum was in such a bad way that the only humane thing to do was to have him put down, but hopefully his last hour would have been a little less traumatic than if he'd just been left to die (it was a good thing I was at home today and had to put some washing out).