Posted on 09/19/2010 8:54:50 AM PDT by Daffynition
The city played possum -- and Brooklyn residents lost.
In a bizarre attempt to outwit Mother Nature, city officials introduced beady-eyed opossums in Brooklyn years ago to scarf down rats running amok in the borough, according to local officials.
Surprise: Operation opossum didn't work.
Not only do wily rats continue to thrive, but the opossums have become their own epidemic, with bands of the conniving creatures sauntering through yards, plundering garbage cans and noshing on fruit trees.
They've even taken up golf, with two sightings of the whiskered marsupials at the Dyker Heights municipal course in the past week, local officials said.
"They are everywhere," said Theresa Scavo, chairwoman for Community Board 15, which represents Sheepshead Bay and surrounding south Brooklyn neighborhoods.
"Didn't any of those brain surgeons realize that the opossums were going to multiply?"
A city Sanitation spokeswoman said they were not involved with the Brooklyn opossum drop, and the Health Department didn't have any record of it. But Scavo and two city councilmen said city officials spoke about the effort at a 2007 Brooklyn forum.
"City brought possums in to take care of rats," read Community Board 15 notes from the meeting.
The opossums were set free in local parks and underneath the Coney Island boardwalk, with the theory being they would die off once the rats were gobbled up, said Councilman Domenic Recchia (D-Brooklyn).
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
A possum bit me once
Possums are cute in their homeliness and rather less noxious than rats. What’s a couple of ‘em on a golf course? Ya think they could give them some little brooms and scoops to clean up after the geese?
I’ve noticed them perched on electric lines above my back yard on several occasions in my KC suburb. Drives my pups crazy (which drives my neighbors crazy with their obnoxious barking).
I heard that timberwolves eat liberals. Just thinking out loud here.......
I’d recommend a nice pellet rifle.
Oppossums are rats with pouches
too many pps
No wonder they’re smilin’!
(And I guess that means they’re on Bloomberg’s payroll.)
Prime example of “eco-engineering” gone wrong.They’ll eat anything(including rodents),but i assume foraging through garbage is easier.Upside?Been told that possum is edible.
NYC should have asked me before they did this stupid thing. Rats and possums are coexisting happily in the ravine behind my house.
Only a moron could approve bringing these disease-ridden critters to an urban area.Rabies,distemper,and who knows what else these carry.
One o' my faves.
They thought they would eat rats? Everyone knows the main diet of urban opossums is cat and dog food!
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