It's A Possum Alright!

There are generally three situations that cause a baby opossum to be separated from his mother: either the mother is killed (by man, dogs or a natural predator), the baby falls off the mother as she is fleeing from danger, or the mother is prevented from returning to her nest.

Rescuing babies still clinging to their dead mother is a very satisfying act of compassion, especially when the mother was killed by a car because someone couldn't bother to slow down to give her time to cross the road. Opossums hit by a car can have live babies in the pouch, babies still clinging to her back, or babies wandering lost and confused up to 50 feet away from their dead mother. If there are babies anywhere near, they need to be rescued, or they will die a slow death from hypothermia (loss of body heat), starvation, or become the temporary, soon-to-be dead play toy for the neighborhood cat or dog.

Babies that have fallen off the mother as she was fleeing from danger will sometimes be reunited if the mother feels secure enough in her own safety to return to the area. Baby opossum have a very distinctive call they make when they're in distress, kind of a shoo, shoo sneezing sound. Often the mother will return to retrieve her wayward child if you give her a chance. Watch the baby from a distance, in part to protect it from cats and dogs that may also hear the crying, but mainly to see if the mother will return. If she does'nt show up within a couple of hours, you may need to rescue.

Opossums will occasionally leave their young in the den to go out and forage for food. If that den happens to be in your garage or under your tool shed, you may inadvertently doom the babies by closing off their mother's access to them. Or you may frighten her as she's returning to the den, causing her to run off and abandon her babies.

The humane solution is to simply make the area uninviting. Keep the area well lit 24 hours a day, remove any food sources (pet food, overripe fruit on the ground), leave a radio turned on low, scatter a few moth balls around the general area (not too close to the babies!). Remember, you don't want to frighten the mother, you just want to encourage her to find a new home.

Once the mother realizes the neighborhood has deteriorated, she will move her babies to a new den. It may take her 3 - 4 days to get everyone resettled, so give her time. When you're certain all the babies are out of the den, close up the access routes so that the next opossum wandering through does not take up residence.