
How to Kill a Possum - samclemens
https://www.theawl.com/2017/09/how-to-kill-a-possum/
======
exabrial
There's a lesson here about ethics. A BB gun should not be shot at anything
alive. You will only injure the animal, causing pain and suffering. If you're
going to shoot something, make an ethical kill that is instantaneous.

.22LR is no good for anything larger than a rat. Soft point or hollow point
5.56mm is very cheap and is reliable up to anything smaller than a coyote.
.300 blackout can take a large hog.

~~~
knieveltech
There's a lesson here about reading the article. The author is a staunch
opponent of the 2nd amendment, refuses to own a gun, and lives in a place
where discharging one is illegal.

~~~
pc86
The point was that a BB is not the right tool for a job. Using it because
that's "the best you can do" is downright sociopathic. Nobody was making an
argument they should use a real gun, or break the law, or compromise their
beliefs, or anything of the sort, just that a BB gun is not an appropriate
tool for what they wanted to do.

------
hprotagonist
One of the odd consequences of urban farming, I just realized, is that the
traditionally correct answer for this kind of pest control (a .22 or a pellet
gun) is no longer really an option.

Drowning is a lot harder.

~~~
pavel_lishin
> _the traditionally correct answer for this kind of pest control (a .22 or a
> pellet gun) is no longer really an option._

I think a .22 would be reasonable in a suburban environment, as long as you've
got your target critter pinned down, and aren't just trying to shoot it off
the fence. Plus, it seems like it would have been a perfectly valid
alternative for the author, if not for her gun views.

> _Drowning is a lot harder._

Seems less humane, too. Aren't there better options than drowning? Can't you
stick 'em in a bag and use a car exhaust?

~~~
hprotagonist
you can. Or in a confined environment with dry ice (which is just CO2).

What the author describes in this piece is the inadvertent cruelty that
basically has to happen when you lack the experience for a clean kill.

Duct-taping a knife to the end of a stick is, under any other circumstance,
just kind of funny. In this case, it's close to unethical.

~~~
13of40
I think a live trap, a plastic bag, and a single-use helium tank from the
party store would do it pretty humanely. CO2 is cheaper but it causes a panic
reaction when the animal breathes it. I tried CO2 on a feral tom cat that was
beating up my other cats several years ago, and it definitely didn't just go
to sleep.

~~~
hprotagonist
Hm. CO2 euthanasia is _de rigeur_ for culling experimental rodents.

~~~
LolWolf
You're right, but SOP for euthanizing rodents is CO2 after anesthetizing them.

~~~
hprotagonist
[https://oacu.oir.nih.gov/sites/default/files/uploads/arac-
gu...](https://oacu.oir.nih.gov/sites/default/files/uploads/arac-
guidelines/b5-2017_rodent_euthanasia-adult_final_1-25-17.pdf)

It's not required.

~~~
LolWolf
Oh, interesting! I'm so used to reading it in papers that they're first
anesthetized before being put in CO2 (along with many lab experiment that do
it) that I thought _that_ was SOP.

Thanks!

~~~
hprotagonist
You are correct; normally the animals are hit with isoflurane first (or
similar), but that's not strictly required.

Large culls are more routinely done with just CO2; I know of a few 100+
animals in a day culls, for example.

Unrelated to lab animals, CO2 or N2 are both used for goose culls (e.g.,
[https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/culled-
geese-a...](https://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/06/15/culled-geese-are-
bound-for-tables-not-dump/)) in part because it's humane and in part because
the meat can still be processed and donated to shelters.

------
JBReefer
Does this person represent the average Californian? She seems so disconnected
from everything, it's kind of sad. The fact she seriously considered a
blowtorch is disturbing. I did enjoy that she recognizes that her political
positions may have flaws, and worked through some cognitive dissonance about
the utility of firearms, and she has a strong artistic voice, to her credit.

Is this what people in Oakland are like? There's something so sad about this
story.

~~~
itbeho
It's not Oakland - plenty of great people there.

------
asciimo
This is a horror story. This is how she dealt with the first animal:

> I had to ram the blade of the shovel into the head of that animal about 30
> times before it actually died.

And the second:

> I emptied an entire barrel full of shot into the possum, aiming for its
> head. After 50 pulls, I ran out of BBs.

> I would have sharpened the knife first, but now I was just committed to
> using the wrong tool for the job. It was terrible. I stabbed and stabbed and
> stabbed, grunting and screeching a little with the effort. At one point, the
> possum grabbed onto the knife with its teeth and had enough life left to
> gnaw at the tape with such ferocity I thought it would wrest the knife from
> the broomstick.

And the eight babies of the second animal:

> I grabbed each tiny sneezing possum, plopped it into the bucket, and covered
> the top with an old piece of plywood. When it was over, I put all eight
> bodies, along with their mother, to rest in the municipal green bin. Thank
> God for Bay Area household composting.

This is little more than the cold recollections of a murderer. She exhibits no
growth, no regret. She admits that the small amount of compassion she would
have for her chickens would be due to "peer pressure."

At least this article is an excellent resource to share with would-be urban
farmers.

~~~
peterwwillis
This is not an excellent resource. This is a cultural signpost pointing to our
society's total disconnection from the responsibilities and consequences of
agriculture. One day our grandchildren will find this post, realize it wasn't
a hoax, and think to themselves: "I guess they really were that stupid."

Also, "murderer" is a really harsh term to throw around for someone who kills
pests, even if they really suck at it and have no idea what they're doing.

~~~
abraae
Au contraire, she is experiencing first hand the responsibilities and
consequences of agriculture, and dealt with it as best she could.

In my country brushtail possums are a rapacious introduced pest (along with
weasels, stoats, hedgehogs and even rats), and conservation involves
continuous efforts to kill them and then stop them from reinvading from
neighbouring properties.

I much prefer killing them in a trap so I don't need to do the dirty work by
hand, but someone somehow does need to kill them. I admire the author for
confronting this reality, and I'm sure next time she'll do it in a far more
effective way that is less stress for everyone.

~~~
peterwwillis
Oh sure, she's experiencing it, now that she raises chickens. The rest of our
society that doesn't raise chickens are just as clueless as she was.

People in a modern urban environment (in the US, anyway) don't understand how
to grow a vegetable, raise a chicken, filet a fish, mill flour and bake bread.
Less than 100 years ago, everyone knew this, because almost everyone did this.
But modern urban creatures are like the possum's babies - constantly feeding
from the teet of a system that insulates them from real world concerns.

~~~
GlenTheMachine
It's even worse than that...

My mom (who lives on the 300 acre family farm) was complaining to my first
cousin (who holds several state bow hunting records and at one time had a
hunting show on cable TV) about how hard it was to keep the raccoons out of
her vegetable garden. "How did the pioneers manage to grow vegetables?" she
pondered out loud.

"They would have eaten a lot more raccoon than you do" was his reply. And he
was absolutely correct. Coon, possum, squirrel, and groundhog were all on the
menu in my neck of the woods well after World War II.

------
pavel_lishin
My parents briefly toyed with the idea of raising chickens, in rural Texas.
They decided not to because of the snakes, and knowing now the amount of work
that goes into it, I'm glad they didn't.

Not that they'd have trouble killing possums; they've solved rat problems with
the judicious application of a bolt action .22 rifle before, which seems like
a rather reasonable sort of fire-arm for the author to own - it's basically a
step up from the BB gun, but actually useful. (And can be made safe for a
household with children by taking the bolt out and locking it up.)

~~~
lebanon_tn
I'm utterly horrified that she attempted to dispatch the possum with a BB gun.
The animal suffered far more than it should have.

------
itbeho
I live on acreage outside city limits and have had to dispatch the occasional
varmint.

However, I would not suggest a firearm (or airgun) in a city environment,
especially not one like Oakland, where intent may be hard to judge by
authorities, and local ordinances might land one in legal jeopardy.

My suggestion in this scenario would be to purchase a Havahart live trap. Bait
it with a little canned tuna fish or peanut butter. Catch the offending
critter and call the local animal control agency. They will come out and take
care of it for you. In some cases animal control will lend you a trap if you
have an ongoing problem.

------
merpnderp
Why doesn't this lady own a dog. A terrier would be delighted to defend the
chickens from predators and would be happy to feast off the chickens who don't
make it.

------
shoover
Ugh. Possum stench is unreal.

We already had a possum get in the cat house when we were on vacation and the
cat food was left out each night. For now the cat house is put away and we are
sure to bring the food in at dark. I'm not looking forward to dealing with
this process if the possum messes with the cat house when we bring it back out
for the winter.

~~~
shoover
I spoke too soon. We were an hour late getting the food in tonight and sure
enough it was back in the food. They must "round" every night. One down. At
least this article helped with mental preparations.

I wish there was something more preventative we could do. Probably just not
have outdoor cats and not care what creeps around at night. Having chickens
and active predators all the time would be a different story altogether.

------
relics443
My dad loves telling the story of how he had a contractor working on his house
in NYC area, and heard a garbage can rattling. He opened the can to find a
full grown possum.

The contractor lazily grabbed a 2x4, whacked the possum in the head, took it
out by the tail and threw it to his son, yelling "we got one for supper."

------
mcguire
Suddenly, the fact that I've spent my entire life avoiding ranching (my
mother's side of the family are almost all ranchers) seems like the best
decision I've ever made.

------
Diederich
> it's very difficult .... [to] shoot the life out of a wild creature.

As others have noted, it depends on a lot of things, but most of all the
energy of the cartridge in question.

While farming in rural Missouri, I found myself needed to end the lives of a
number of animals over the years. In that pursuit, I always used this
cartridge:

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.30-06_Springfield](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.30-06_Springfield)

This is suitable to kill any creature found in North America, except for
perhaps the largest of bears. Unfortunately, it is exceptionally loud and not
something to be used outside of very rural environments.

Disclaimer: some people will find the following story very uncomfortable to
read. (It's rather uncomfortable to write) I relay it only to emphasize the
fact that in all matters related to bullets and damage, there's an enormous
amount of random chance involved.

A friend of ours was retired, but she raised a fair number of goats for milk
and profit. Her financial well being waxed and wained over time, but she
happened to find herself with no extra money, and a very sick and dying goat.

She could not bring herself to shoot the goat herself, so she asked me to do
it as a very unpleasant but needful favor, since she (at that point in time)
lacked the money to take it to a vet to have it put down. (That's a rather
expensive thing, even in rural areas, including disposal.) She also didn't
have a large enough property to leave a carcass out for natural consumption. I
had plenty of isolated, forested acres.

She lived about 10 miles away, so I took my pickup over there. The goat was
laying on the ground, writhing and screaming. Goat screams are awful. I put
the goat into my pickup as gently as I could and drove back home. It was
already a pretty unhappy set of circumstances, but it was going get worse.

I drove to the back side of my property, in the woods, and gently laid the
poor beast on the ground. Chambering a big .30-06, I put my foot firmly on her
neck, took careful aim right at her head, and fired.

To the uninitiated: this is a big, powerful round. Fired into the ground, it
will leave a good sized pit behind. It passes right through 1/4 inch steel.

I expected a big mess and a completely dead goat. Somehow, it had blasted away
most of the goat's skull above and including her right eye, but it left her
brain completely intact.

She twisted, directed her remaining eye at me, and screamed again.

The second shot went directly into her exposed brain and that was that.

I'm not sure why I'm sharing this sordid story, except that, once again, when
dealing with objects at high energies, almost anything can happen.

------
namiller2
Opossum.

~~~
eighthnate
My favorite scrabble word. My friend thought he blocked me from a triple word
score by putting possum in front of triple word square. I put "box" on the
triple word score and connect it with opossum and won the game. We had a huge
argument that opossum wasn't a word. We didn't have a scrabble dictionary so
we had to confer with a couple of dictionaries before he conceded.

------
Yetanfou
This might be unrelated but in a way it is not. Why do so many people insist
on "checking their iPhone" or "using my iPhone as lamp" or "getting my iPhone"
or "consulting my iPhone" or, well, anything "my iPhone". I literally never
met anyone telling me they'd just whip out their Samsung, check their
Motorola, consult their Nokia or get their whatever brand of phone they happen
to use, they just "check their phone" or "use their phone" or "get their
phone". Why do those using Apple-logoed devices insist on educating the world
on the presence of just that logo on their devices? I'd feel just silly doing
something like that, like I was being used as a tool.

------
trhway
animal cruelty committed with no remorse, empathy, etc... - pretty much
textbook picture of a psychopath. (note that while pest status of animal does
grant the right to kill it, it doesn't grant the right to torture.)

~~~
sctb
Whatever your judgement of the author, comments here still need to be civil
and substantive. Speculation about the mental health of others is neither.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html)

~~~
trhway
>Speculation about the mental health of others is neither.

i didn't speculate about her mental state. I stated that described behavior
matches behavior exhibited by a psychopath. She may be a psychopath, or may
have been just dead drunk/high or the story may be not real, or whatever - i
don't know those facts. I commented on described behavior - the described
behavior is clearly psychopathic, whether it happened or not.

I think California prohibits videos of animal torture and such detailed
description is pretty close to it. I hope somebody reports this story to
authorities, either on the grounds of animal cruelty perpetrated or its public
description.

