Lively debate unfolds over whether or not 'possums can catch rabies

A week or so ago, my young son, James, spotted an old red fox in the wood line at the back of the field behind our house. Since there is no closed season on fox in Alabama, he got the idea that he was going to catch this fox. Being that we didn’t own any kind of live trap, I didn’t think much more about it at the time.

The next day, he brought a live trap home from my father-in-law’s and commenced to setting it up behind our shed, which is in our backyard, a short walk from our backdoor. Earlier that day, a down-the-road cousin of mine had suggested that James, who is only 11, bait the trap with a few marshmallows doctored with a few drops of vanilla extract. This type of bait is supposedly irresistible to foxes and other woodland creatures.

The first morning, James got up and checked the trap only to discover that he’d successfully captured one of our half-witted yard dogs. The next morning, James checked the trap and found that he’d caught one of the two nameless cats that patrol our yard. At this point, I suggested that James move the trap somewhere out of the yard entirely and closer to the actual woods.

He agreed, moved the trap, set the bait and went to school. The following evening, which was Wednesday of last week, I went with him to check his trap. As we walked towards the trap, I began to lecture him on the dangers of rabies and how if he caught a fox or a raccoon in his trap, he needed to just assume that it had rabies. “You don’t dare stick your hand in that cage,” I told him.

About 20 yards from the cage, we could see that he’d actually managed to catch a large possum. I honestly kind of felt sorry for the old possum, which had only wanted to enjoy a few little vanilla-flavored marshmallows. As he stared up at us with his sad possum eyes, I again warned James that he might have rabies.

“Possums don’t get rabies,” James said.

“The (blank) they don’t,” I replied.

“They can’t,” he said. “Their body temperature is too low.”

“Where did you hear that mess?”

“On the internet.”

“Well, you can’t believe everything you read on the internet.”

As we released the possum back into the woods, safe and sound, I told James that I was going to check out the possum-rabies situation to see if they can actually contract rabies. Last Thursday at The Courant office, my colleague Butch and I discussed the matter, and, like me, he’d always heard that possums could get rabies. As I began to research the matter further, thanks to the Opossum Society of the United States, I learned that James and I were both partially right about possums and rabies.

According to the Opossum Society of the United States, a group dedicated to understanding, protecting and preserving ‘possums, any mammal, including possums, can get rabies. However, the chance of a possum contracting rabies is extremely rare. Scientists believe that this may have something to do with the possum’s low body temperature (94-97º F), which makes it difficult for the virus to survive in a possum’s body.

I chalked this information up to continuing education and told James later that he still needs to be careful when handling possums. If there’s even a chance that it has rabies, in my book, it’s better to be safe than sorry. Nothing will spoil a day more than getting bit by a possum and contracting hydrophobia.