Tag Name "Possums" (3)

I'd come into town from the bush - after 28 years of field work in natural systems - and become an academic. So I turned my attention to humans, much as I had to possums in the forests.

When possums were introduced in 1837 to start a fur industry, no one predicted that these Australian neighbours would naturalize with destructive enthusiasm, wreaking havoc on gardens and bush alike. Up to 20 million possums a year were killed during the height of the fur trade, but this barely checked their rapid expansion.

I'm not really scared of a lot of things. I'm scared of possums. And I'm scared of raccoons sometimes, it depends on how big it is - I'm scared of the smaller raccoons because the bigger ones are slower.