While not native to California, opossums can be found throughout Southern California often lurking around at night. These marsupials (yes, the marsupials related to Kangaroos and Wallabies) were first introduced to California around 1910, according to the California Department of Fish and Wildlife.
Virginia opossums are opportunists, meaning they will eat just about anything that is available to them. Your trash can? Probably already dug through. The garden? Also got to. And just about anything left outside? Check. Unless you’re hanging out in your backyard all night, you won’t see these guys running around very often. They are solely nocturnal, finding food at night and sleeping during the day.
While opossums are not necessarily dangerous to humans, many assume they are rabid or dangerous based on the opossums’ behavior when threatened, but that’s not true. If you ever come face to face with an opossum they will either run at the first sign of trouble or will take a stand with their mouth open, hair up, and an occasional hiss to seem bigger and more dangerous than they truly are. If that doesn’t work to scare off the potential predator (in this case, you), the opossum will try to play dead, and they can be pretty convincing too.
This is not something the opossum can control. If they feel threatened or cornered by a predator, their body will automatically go into a state of pseudo death. They can be kicked, rolled around, poked, and messed with in any way and will still not move. They go limp, open their mouth, their eyes glass over, and to really sell their “death”, they have a gland near their tail that releases a liquid to make them SMELL like they are dead.
No predator wants a dead and decaying animal. Keeping the opossum safe from anything that wants to potentially eat them.
If you ever run into an opossum in your backyard, don’t worry. They aren’t there for you… just your trash.
