Four Baby Possums Rescued After Someone Flings Their Dead Mother Off Of a Driveway with Newborn Young Clinging To Her

Wildlife preservationists are nursing four baby possums in incubators after someone appears to have flung the body of their pregnant mother, killed by a car and with her babies still clinging to her, off of a shared driveway and over a stone wall in New Canaan early Thursday, officials say.

The babies’ mother almost certainly had been hit by a car and killed, before her body, with visible babies in her pouch and clinging to her as if to feed, was tossed aside off of a driveway and abandoned, officials say. Photo published with permission from its owner

Shortly before 9 a.m., an East Cross Road woman spotted the dead marsupial in her driveway—eight to 10 live newborns in a pouch and clinging to her—as she was dropping off her youngest two kids at West School, a girl in the second grade and son in the third.

The resident, Amedee Maggard, phoned Weston-based Wildlife In Crisis and the Animal Control section of the New Canaan Police Department about the discovery. But by the time she returned to the driveway and met Animal Control Officer Allyson Halm there later in the morning, the mother possum was gone, and only a pile of blood remained where she had been.

Baby possums rescued from East Cross Road on the morning of April 28, 2016. Photo published with permission from its owner

Halm promptly set about searching for the animal in the area and found her, “hanging off a branch” where she obviously had been flung aside by someone, with the helpless young “scattered left and right,” she said.

“One of them was crying out to me,” Halm recalled.

Halm managed to locate four living babies in the brush, and Maggard—following instructions from Peter Reid of Wildlife In Crisis—placed them in a warm, ventilated container that included a blue stuffed animal cat that she had retrieved from her own daughter’s room and warmed in the microwave.

Baby possums rescued from East Cross Road on the morning of April 28, 2016. Photo published with permission from its owner

It isn’t clear just who hit the possum or when, or who apparently tossed her, live babies and all, off of the driveway and into the brush.

Asked whether she had a lesson for New Canaanites following the discovery, Halm said: “Certainly do not ignore it and don’t act ignorantly or cruelly, which to me—that someone flung them—it just breaks my heart. We are going to see this. It is that time of year and wildlife does get orphaned and there are those who can assist, including this office.”

Halm praised Maggard’s concern and actions.

“She was compassionate and stopped her day to help these animals,” Halm said. “She rearranged her whole morning.”

Maggard retrieved her kids from school early (she has two more daughters in the fifth and sixth grades at Saxe Middle School) so that they all could deliver the baby possums together to Wildlife In Crisis.

“I decided this is such a good teaching moment for them, for all of us,” said Maggard, a self-described animal lover who had grown up with sheep, chickens, peacocks and other animals in Ossining, N.Y. and Lyme, Conn.

Reid said the four surviving baby possums are being hand-fed a milk replacement formula in an incubator, and that one of them has a small abrasion but otherwise they all seem fine.

Had the mother lived with her young—they typically have large litters of about one dozen—they eventually would have migrated to her back for a period of time, until they could follow her around on her own.

“Possums are kind of misunderstood,” Reid said. “They’re not aggressive at all. They are great scavengers, a lot of woodland cleanup work and it turns out each adult possum can kill thousands of ticks per week—they pick them up on their coats and when they’re grooming, they kill and eat the ticks. They are viewed as a pest but they’re probably one of the greatest tick-killers out there.”

The baby possums join other orphaned wildlife at the donor-supported Wildlife In Crisis, such as baby raccoons, gray and flying squirrels, chipmunks and foxes. When small mammals come in, they’re typically bathed and then placed in an incubator, and once they’re warm enough to start feeding, hand-fed four times per day with a syringe by a staff that’s on site all day and into the night, Reid said.

Eventually, when they’re able, the animals are released into protected habitats as close as possible to where they originated, he said.

In this case, the four orphaned possums likely will be self-sufficient enough for release in August, he said.