P.S.
I work at a wildlife rehabilitation hospital and I have also owned chickens for over twenty years. I love all animals and all animals are unique and beautiful in their own way. They are also necessary to their part in the web of life. Seeing a picture like that and hearing about killing gators (which once were on the brink of extinction) just makes me sad.
I have had to scoop my dog up from the reach of a gator before and I have walked into my coop only to find every single one of my ducks beheaded by some kind of toothy predator, but I still cannot bring myself to rejoice in death. I am setting a trap for a snapping turtle in the pond where my brand new ducklings will be swimming as we speak. Last year, turtles got three of my babies and I was devastated, but its the turtles world, its the opossums world and its the gators world. We just happened to move in. What else are they going to do, they need to eat and they will go for the easiest meal possible, just like us. If they get our birds or livestock, its because we made it possible for them to do so and so the fault is ours, not the wild animals.
Opossums are acutally amazing creatures if you think about it. They are the only marsupial which survived the ice age and continental drift, to live OUTSIDE of australia. They are tough, crafty little survivors. Crocodilians like the alligator are living dinosaurs! How cool is that? I know that sometimes we have to neutralize a threat, but shouldn't we temper this killing with regret at the loss of a life. Just like we regret losing our chickens, the web of life regrets losing that opossum.
I take care of two opossums at the hospital and they are two very engaging creatures, its a hoot to see them slurp up some mealworms. Seeing that opossum staked and bloody makes me think of my two babies, potential killers that they may be. But then again, when you think about it, who's the bigger killer, the opossum, the gator or the human. How many species have we eliminated in the past hundred years, because we carelessly believed that we have dominion over the natural world. What's more cruel, an opossum eating some chickens in order to feed itself, or some guys clubbing baby seals so that some rich lady could have a nice coat?
I'm just sayin'
