I love almost all animals. Three of them I don't like are rats, opossum, and nutria. The nutria I have seen were large and had no fear of humans. I have had two that saw me and actually changed their coars to approach me. Once I was feeding ducks and the nutria swam over climbed out of the river and started walking toward me with his mouth open. I didn't move at first but he never stopped. He just kept coming towards me. I made a movement to scare him away. He stopped for a second and then kept on coming for me, with no fear, but a little faster. The nutria wasn't overtly aggressive, but that lack of fear in an animal with teeth like that disturbed me.
I used to jump off those jetties all the time to get past the break when I was surfing. Never saw any rats though.
theres a possum that frequents my back yard. disgusting creature. i've also seen some rats in asia as big as the possum we have here.
Has anybody ever seen a possum play "possum" at all? I try to approach the ugly bastards but whenever I do they just run away or snarl.
Hey, don't feel bad. I was out on my back deck, chllin' in the dark last year, and I heard a rustle back in the yard. I happened to have a flashlight by me, so I shine it on whatever was out there, thinking it was probably a cat and DAMN!! It was a possum, who turned and looked right at me with those damned teeth, before he lumbered off. I've seen plenty of possums, but didn't expect to see one in my backyard, considering where we live. It just startled the hell out of me, and then I felt pretty foolish. (yes, even androids, when they aren't dreaming of electric sheep, can feel foolish) In short, since that moment, I have hated possums. Give me a good armadillo any day. (or night!) It ain't tha damn critter, it's being surprised by the damn critter!
Yes, completely tricked me too. My dog was in the yard and I heard something hit the fence and then my dog was barking strangely. So I run out. She's barking at this possum corpse on the ground and I assume the sound I heard was her throwing it against the fence. I was reminded of my brother-in-law's story of how she had killed a big rat in TN with a single attack. So, I get the dog inside, talk briefly with my wife, get a plastic bag and go back outside and the corpse is gone. Then, I realized the possum was playing possum. He got me good. I had looked at him pretty closely at first and he looked like he was in bad shape. Of course, possums always look like that. My dog got hold of a second possum later (or maybe the same one). This time, I was on to him though. I put my dog inside and gave the possum some time to clear out. When I went back out, he was up on one elbow but still looked groggy as hell (when possums play possum, they actually pass out). So, I went to bed. In the morning he was gone. My next door neighbor keeps chickens and sometimes possums attack them. He didn't want to shoot the possums because we live in the inner city and doesn't want to make anyone who can hear the gunshots uncomfortable. So, he'll beat them to death with a stick. And, one more story, that has nothing to do with possums. I was walking my dog the other week, and another dog comes up to investigate. It's a big, stout dog that weighs at least 100 pounds. He has a collar but no leash. He seemed friendly enough, but too bold, and unfortunately my dog turns every meeting with other dogs into a fight. So I give the dog a little kick, but he won't stop coming. The two dogs tussle a bit, but my dog is less than half his size (my dog is so stupid), so I kick the other dog in the head, twice, as hard as I can. After the second kick, he sits down for a moment; then he calmly gets up and trots away. I aggravated a sprain in my ankle in the process. But, I felt bad for having to kick a dog.
One night I was sitting at a red light in Southwest Houston, near HBU, and this large rat walked across the street. He crossed at the traffic light, in the crosswalk, just like he was supposed to. You know they're getting a little too comfortable when they know the traffic rules.
** beware -- lots of gore below ** Oh, I am reminded of a gruesome possum-encounter story that a fledgling mountaineer like bigtexxx might appreciate... actually relayed to me back in 1997 by one of my mountaineering buddies that lives down in Seabrook. We were out on a climbing trip on Mt. Shasta, taking turns doing some technical ice-climbing in the serac on the glacier. While waiting for a few of the other folks to finish that were ahead of us, he starts telling this story... It goes like this: A few months earlier, he was back in Seabrook at his house. He had been hearing noises in the attic for a few weeks right above his bedroom. Scratching, lumbering, creaking... for several hours... maybe between 1 and 4am each night. One night he just kind of snapped because he couldn't sleep anymore. He was really pissed, got out of bed, followed the sounds to his closet where all his climbing gear was stored and opened the door. It seemed to settle right there in the ceiling above his closet. Now, I'm not sure what possessed him to do this, but he took one of his trekking poles and poked at the ceiling trap door (he was kind of a weird survivalist type and had a makeshift trapdoor in his closet ceiling). This massive possum fell through door opening onto the floor of his closet. He started beating it with the trekking pole, but since it was sort of a lightweight aluminum pole (like a ski-pole) it didn't do much other than bend the pole... What does he grab? His ice axe... He proceeds to just hack at this thing with the flat adze side of the ice axe... pretty much cutting it in half after a few swings. He spent the rest of the night cleaning up the mess. I had to share a tent with this guy for the rest of Shasta, Rainier, and some of the fourteeners in Colorado over the next month... that story made sleeping a little unpleasant.
dont get me started on RATS. I never had any hatred of the things until I moved to NYC. my old building was INFESTED with them, I had to move out because of it. we were right next to a subway station, and they lived in the walls of the building. one day i heard movement within the walls and I thought it was a neighbors dog upstairs. sure enough it was a family of rats... and the neighbors didnt help, we had a single guy living with his elderly mother, they lived in squalor, we think thats why the rats loved our building so much. well every once in a while, we would come home to SLAUGHTERED RATS in the hallway. thats right, they were kicked down the stairwell and left to bleed all over the building, it stunk and it was enough to put in 30 days notice. so that was when i moved from 110thstreet... NYC rats outnumber New Yorkers by EIGHT TO ONE!!
One of my co-workers went to use a bathroom that is not used very often. He was washing his hands and then noticed a dead possum hanging from the air vent right above him. A lot of animals get in that particular building; usually it's squirrels and feral cats.
