How to Kill a Possum
theawl.com
theawl.com
.22LR is no good for anything larger than a rat. Soft point or hollow point 5.56mm is very cheap and is reliable up to anything smaller than a coyote. .300 blackout can take a large hog.
Not to be too graphic, but moving from 22LR to 5.56mm is a huge jump. It's not unusual for a possum-sized animal to "explode" when hit with 5.56mm out of a rifle. Gophers (ground squirrels) certainly do if you watch the Youtube videos.
Speaking as someone who has actually killed a possum with a BB gun, I agree that you should definitely not shoot it in the ass with a single-pump Daisy air pistol. However, a high-end, high-FPS, multi-pump air rifle is fine for taking out an animal that size, as long as you can get a clean head shot. I've actually seen someone kill an adult raccoon with one shot from a 20-caliber pellet gun.
It's perfectly acceptable to shoot small game birds and small mammals with a BB gun. In California, in fact, it's legal to hunt Doves, Quail, Grouse, and Rabbits with a BB gun.
> 22LR is no good for anything larger than a rat.
I used to trap and dispatch nuisance small game in rural Ohio for a few farmers as a pre-teen/teenager. Always carried a .22. Even large possums, some were up to 12 lbs, were not a problem at all.
Drowning is a lot harder.
I think a .22 would be reasonable in a suburban environment, as long as you've got your target critter pinned down, and aren't just trying to shoot it off the fence. Plus, it seems like it would have been a perfectly valid alternative for the author, if not for her gun views.
> Drowning is a lot harder.
Seems less humane, too. Aren't there better options than drowning? Can't you stick 'em in a bag and use a car exhaust?
What the author describes in this piece is the inadvertent cruelty that basically has to happen when you lack the experience for a clean kill.
Duct-taping a knife to the end of a stick is, under any other circumstance, just kind of funny. In this case, it's close to unethical.
But I guess I'm still thinking in the context of my parents' house where I grew up, where you can just go out to the garage and stumble over half-a-dozen improvised mammal murder instruments on the way to the one you specifically had in mind.
I get that not everyone needs to split wood but a BFH is even more basic of a tool than that.
Not recommended for killing possums BTW.
It would work on the first try which is a massive step up from everything the author tried.
It's not required.
Thanks!
Large culls are more routinely done with just CO2; I know of a few 100+ animals in a day culls, for example.
Unrelated to lab animals, CO2 or N2 are both used for goose culls (e.g., https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/culled-geese-a...) in part because it's humane and in part because the meat can still be processed and donated to shelters.
From https://research.utexas.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2015/...:
The 2013 edition of the American Veterinary Medical Association Guidelines for the
Euthanasia of Animals concludes that CO2 euthanasia is humane only when rodents are exposed to a gradually
rising concentration that will cause narcosis (loss of consciousness due to the depression of cerebral activity)
before the sensitive respiratory tissues are exposed to high concentrations. An optimal flow rate for CO2
euthanasia systems should displace 10%-30% of the chamber (or cage) volume per minute
I have bad news about 90% of your life.
edit: I figured I'd go back and expand on this, to make it better than a reddit joke comment. These chickens seem like they're moderately well cared for, and are effectively pets - albeit pets that are at risk of being eaten by a possum.
If having chickens is unnecessary, so is having pets of any kind - but we have studies that show this to be a falsehood. You might as well argue that having more than a few sets of clothing is unethical (sweatshops exist), eating off-season fruit is unethical (gasoline doesn't grow in trees), having books is unethical (paper doens't grow on, uh, nevermind), etc.
The author of the original article seems to be somewhat inept as a farmer, but she freely admits this by sharing this story. I don't think she handled this particular situation well, but I'd wager that she learns from this and does better in the future, ethically speaking.
In addition, it erases the curtain we as a society have drawn over where food comes from. Society cannot make ethical decisions about what to eat, how food should be produced, where it should be produced, and whether/how much waste to accept - because most people have no idea how the food gets from the soil onto their plates or into their refrigerators.
Erasing our connection with the land and farming is what is unethical about this situation.
I've heard arguments to the contrary, based on the efficiency of scale. Basically, it's better for the environment to grow most of your food in one place, and then ship it into a dense city, rather than everyone growing a bit of what they need, and then schlepping around in a car to gather up your other various supplies.
In this specific example, I'd be curious about what sort of carbon footprint is generated by ordering chicken feed, vs. having farm eggs shipped to a local store you can walk to.
It's illegal in many, possibly most, urban and suburban environments, as pest control tends not to be an exception to “discharging a firearm within city limits” laws.
I know quite a few people that have setup bullet traps in their basements and pretty much have an indoor range even in restricted states.
Generally, they cover the entire incorporated area of any city in the jurisdiction, though there tend to be exceptions for qualified ranges as well as circumstances like self-defense.
You'd be surprised what a cheap Chinese under-lever will take down.
Is this what people in Oakland are like? There's something so sad about this story.
> I had to ram the blade of the shovel into the head of that animal about 30 times before it actually died.
And the second:
> I emptied an entire barrel full of shot into the possum, aiming for its head. After 50 pulls, I ran out of BBs.
> I would have sharpened the knife first, but now I was just committed to using the wrong tool for the job. It was terrible. I stabbed and stabbed and stabbed, grunting and screeching a little with the effort. At one point, the possum grabbed onto the knife with its teeth and had enough life left to gnaw at the tape with such ferocity I thought it would wrest the knife from the broomstick.
And the eight babies of the second animal:
> I grabbed each tiny sneezing possum, plopped it into the bucket, and covered the top with an old piece of plywood. When it was over, I put all eight bodies, along with their mother, to rest in the municipal green bin. Thank God for Bay Area household composting.
This is little more than the cold recollections of a murderer. She exhibits no growth, no regret. She admits that the small amount of compassion she would have for her chickens would be due to "peer pressure."
At least this article is an excellent resource to share with would-be urban farmers.
There's (arguably) nothing particularly unacceptable about killing possums per se.
There's a _lot_ that's unacceptable about killing them inhumanely, and even more when it's presented in a way that doesn't suggest that the author tried to learn better ways.
There are lots of 'humane' ways of killing animals that do not involve firearms (this is the illegal option given in the article).
Note that the author still tried an illegal method regardless (the BB gun, which is a projectile weapon).
> I had a brainwave. “I’m getting the blowtorch!” Brilliant! I could burn the possum.
I'd hope this was a poor attempt at humor, but given the actual methods attempted, who knows.
> I pathetically consulted my iPhone for ideas
If you need to consult your iPhone on how to humanely put down an animal, you probably shouldn't be doing it. Especially if you find some random advice about duck taping a knife to a broom handle and then follow it.
This whole article is horrifying.
I'm not saying she went about this the right way, but as someone who has tried and failed to kill an opossum, you realize it's pretty freaking hard to do humanely.
I'd suggest hitting the possum with a stick or shovel once—not enough to really injure the guy, just enough to make it play dead. Then you can grab a metal trash can, and shove in there. Preferably with a stick, as they are really smelly. Ensure it doesn't tip over, and call Animal Control in the morning.
If you need to kill animals to safeguard your livestock, and you don't have a method of killing them humanely, then you have already abdicated your responsibility and shouldn't be farming.
> Our species has been killing animals for thousands of years.
Thankfully our species has made some progress over the last few thousand years, and most of us are lucky to no longer be in the position where cruelty is unavoidable in order to survive. A lot of progress can still be made, but we can't use the past to excuse the actions of the present.
Seriously, one longs to stand on the sideline, revelling in the irony of seeing a city dweller chased down by his own delusional kind.
But then.. no. The Possum is part of nature, its trying to feed on farm animals held in small numbers- is part of nature, its death because it tryied to hard - is part of nature. Im very glad the author is not part of your progress. The extinctions, the fully automated farms, the wildlife instinction with gas and traps, because "hunting" is to much for someone so refinend and noble a creature.
I wish you would starve for a day. I want to see drawing calories ouf of morals. I want to see the doubts vannish in that all encompassing hole your stomache becomes. I want to see you break out of that disney delusion of nature, into the ugly reality that is nature. To accept it as part of what is. Notice how the author is not poisoning everything that crawls on her farm. Notice how she is honest to herself. How she is exausted from a lot of what life throws at her?
She is a adult.
You are not.
Just to be clear, I have nothing against hunting, only against cruelty.
And in any case, this conversation is not about hunting, but about farming, which is something that is a decidedly human invention, and so an argument towards what is and is not 'natural' is tangential. We have already left nature far behind.
I am a animal. The bacteria inside of me is there so i can diggest other living beeings, who devoured either directly or in a chain sunlight. I am part of nature, and im trying to be it in a responsible way.
Part of that responsible way is to not give into any emotional hipocrisy. I call the one, buying a plant to eat, where a whole forrest had to go forever, erasing all future opposum-opportunitys more cruel then a girl who tired eats a egg in the morning, for which she fought in rain and storm on a non-high-tech farm.
All methods detailed within are totally bananas and not ones a reasonably experienced and responsible animal farmer would think of.
Also, "murderer" is a really harsh term to throw around for someone who kills pests, even if they really suck at it and have no idea what they're doing.
In my country brushtail possums are a rapacious introduced pest (along with weasels, stoats, hedgehogs and even rats), and conservation involves continuous efforts to kill them and then stop them from reinvading from neighbouring properties.
I much prefer killing them in a trap so I don't need to do the dirty work by hand, but someone somehow does need to kill them. I admire the author for confronting this reality, and I'm sure next time she'll do it in a far more effective way that is less stress for everyone.
People in a modern urban environment (in the US, anyway) don't understand how to grow a vegetable, raise a chicken, filet a fish, mill flour and bake bread. Less than 100 years ago, everyone knew this, because almost everyone did this. But modern urban creatures are like the possum's babies - constantly feeding from the teet of a system that insulates them from real world concerns.
My mom (who lives on the 300 acre family farm) was complaining to my first cousin (who holds several state bow hunting records and at one time had a hunting show on cable TV) about how hard it was to keep the raccoons out of her vegetable garden. "How did the pioneers manage to grow vegetables?" she pondered out loud.
"They would have eaten a lot more raccoon than you do" was his reply. And he was absolutely correct. Coon, possum, squirrel, and groundhog were all on the menu in my neck of the woods well after World War II.
I agree with this. But note that people disagreeing with the author's actions are not necessarily against the killing of animals that threaten your livestock: this is a necessary reality. The issue is that this author does so in an apparently irresponsible, inhumane way. It is not necessary to torture animals.
People that use the term murderer already know that the state wouldn't get a conviction.
Not that they'd have trouble killing possums; they've solved rat problems with the judicious application of a bolt action .22 rifle before, which seems like a rather reasonable sort of fire-arm for the author to own - it's basically a step up from the BB gun, but actually useful. (And can be made safe for a household with children by taking the bolt out and locking it up.)
Unless you are talking about a hunting air rifle a BB gun won't even break skin any 22 LR even fired from a pistol will go through bone and can easily kill a person.
A gun is an effective way to kill rats that have been caught, though. I'd recommend a good air rifle over the .22 though; much quieter and cheaper.)
However, I would not suggest a firearm (or airgun) in a city environment, especially not one like Oakland, where intent may be hard to judge by authorities, and local ordinances might land one in legal jeopardy.
My suggestion in this scenario would be to purchase a Havahart live trap. Bait it with a little canned tuna fish or peanut butter. Catch the offending critter and call the local animal control agency. They will come out and take care of it for you. In some cases animal control will lend you a trap if you have an ongoing problem.
We already had a possum get in the cat house when we were on vacation and the cat food was left out each night. For now the cat house is put away and we are sure to bring the food in at dark. I'm not looking forward to dealing with this process if the possum messes with the cat house when we bring it back out for the winter.
I wish there was something more preventative we could do. Probably just not have outdoor cats and not care what creeps around at night. Having chickens and active predators all the time would be a different story altogether.
The contractor lazily grabbed a 2x4, whacked the possum in the head, took it out by the tail and threw it to his son, yelling "we got one for supper."
As others have noted, it depends on a lot of things, but most of all the energy of the cartridge in question.
While farming in rural Missouri, I found myself needed to end the lives of a number of animals over the years. In that pursuit, I always used this cartridge:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.30-06_Springfield
This is suitable to kill any creature found in North America, except for perhaps the largest of bears. Unfortunately, it is exceptionally loud and not something to be used outside of very rural environments.
Disclaimer: some people will find the following story very uncomfortable to read. (It's rather uncomfortable to write) I relay it only to emphasize the fact that in all matters related to bullets and damage, there's an enormous amount of random chance involved.
A friend of ours was retired, but she raised a fair number of goats for milk and profit. Her financial well being waxed and wained over time, but she happened to find herself with no extra money, and a very sick and dying goat.
She could not bring herself to shoot the goat herself, so she asked me to do it as a very unpleasant but needful favor, since she (at that point in time) lacked the money to take it to a vet to have it put down. (That's a rather expensive thing, even in rural areas, including disposal.) She also didn't have a large enough property to leave a carcass out for natural consumption. I had plenty of isolated, forested acres.
She lived about 10 miles away, so I took my pickup over there. The goat was laying on the ground, writhing and screaming. Goat screams are awful. I put the goat into my pickup as gently as I could and drove back home. It was already a pretty unhappy set of circumstances, but it was going get worse.
I drove to the back side of my property, in the woods, and gently laid the poor beast on the ground. Chambering a big .30-06, I put my foot firmly on her neck, took careful aim right at her head, and fired.
To the uninitiated: this is a big, powerful round. Fired into the ground, it will leave a good sized pit behind. It passes right through 1/4 inch steel.
I expected a big mess and a completely dead goat. Somehow, it had blasted away most of the goat's skull above and including her right eye, but it left her brain completely intact.
She twisted, directed her remaining eye at me, and screamed again.
The second shot went directly into her exposed brain and that was that.
I'm not sure why I'm sharing this sordid story, except that, once again, when dealing with objects at high energies, almost anything can happen.
i didn't speculate about her mental state. I stated that described behavior matches behavior exhibited by a psychopath. She may be a psychopath, or may have been just dead drunk/high or the story may be not real, or whatever - i don't know those facts. I commented on described behavior - the described behavior is clearly psychopathic, whether it happened or not.
I think California prohibits videos of animal torture and such detailed description is pretty close to it. I hope somebody reports this story to authorities, either on the grounds of animal cruelty perpetrated or its public description.