{"id":1169,"date":"2017-10-02T21:40:38","date_gmt":"2017-10-03T02:40:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/gazette\/2017\/10\/02\/171002_possumintrap\/"},"modified":"2022-03-31T14:17:40","modified_gmt":"2022-03-31T19:17:40","slug":"171002_possumintrap","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2017\/10\/02\/171002_possumintrap\/","title":{"rendered":"This possum isn&#8217;t playing"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Well, I <a href=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2017\/09\/26\/170926_moreraccoons\/\">may not be able to outsmart a raccoon<\/a>, but that doesn&#8217;t mean I&#8217;m a total trapping failure.<\/p>\n<p>Last Saturday I awoke to find that the door on the trap was closed, but through the bathroom window I couldn&#8217;t identify the occupant. I got dressed and walked through the back yard and around the corner with my phone&#8217;s video recorder going. Here&#8217;s what I found:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Possum Capture\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/236517281?h=9befbc4aac&amp;badge=0&amp;autopause=0&amp;player_id=0&amp;app_id=58479\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Later, I reviewed the photos from my game camera, which I had focused on the trap, and was able to recreate the timeline of the capture.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; font-size: .9em;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin-bottom: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/possumcapture\/gamecam01.jpg\" alt=\"Photo - Possum first appears on camera\" \/><br \/>\nThe possum first appears at 4:27 a.m. Note the open trap door.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; font-size: .9em;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin-bottom: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/possumcapture\/gamecam02.jpg\" alt=\"Photo - The trap door is closed\" \/><br \/>\nThe trap door closes sometime between 4:27 &amp; 4:30, presumably to the possum&#8217;s chagrin.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center; font-size: .9em;\"><img decoding=\"async\" style=\"border: 1px solid black; margin-bottom: 8px;\" src=\"https:\/\/www.ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/images\/miscphotos\/possumcapture\/gamecam03.jpg\" alt=\"Photo - When daylight arrives, the trap door is opened, but the possum remains\" \/><br \/>\nDaylight arrives, but the possum doesn&#8217;t depart, despite the open door. The rock on top of the cage is to keep the trap from closing again, when\/if the prisoner decides to accept the terms of his parole.<\/p>\n<p>Alert Gazette readers will recall that this was not my first possum encounter. I much prefer the live ones to <a href=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2017\/05\/12\/170511_deadpossum\/\">those of the deceased persuasion<\/a>. They&#8217;re actually a fascinating species, being almost totally resistant to the venom of rattlesnakes and water mocassins (which ruled out one of my cause-of-death theories espoused in the preceding link), and quite resistant to rabies.<\/p>\n<p>Also, that &#8220;playing possum&#8221; deal is a real thing, but it appears to be an involuntary, uncontrollable act, much like Trump&#8217;s tweets. The catatonic state can last up to several hours. This behavior is not present in babies, nor well-developed in juveniles, which might explain why this young one merely clung to the side of the cage when approached.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m fairly confident that possums aren&#8217;t culprits in the systematic destruction of our yard and flower beds, so I had no qualms about releasing this one back into the neighborhood.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Well, I may not be able to outsmart a raccoon, but that doesn&#8217;t mean I&#8217;m a total trapping failure. Last Saturday I awoke to find that the door on the trap was closed, but through the bathroom window I couldn&#8217;t identify the occupant. I got dressed and walked through the back yard and around the&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/2017\/10\/02\/171002_possumintrap\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">This possum isn&#8217;t playing<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[59,65],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-texas-hill-country","category-wildlife-trapping","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1169"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9320,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1169\/revisions\/9320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ericsiegmund.com\/fireant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}