For a state that doesn’t have a known wild population of opossums, there seem to be a lot of the pesky critters around.
Despite what wildlife experts say, people in some areas around Wyoming report there are plenty of opossums, and they stink so badly even dogs and cats can’t stand being around them.
Ken Bauer, who has a farm near the tiny community of Veteran in Goshen County, told Cowboy State Daily about an encounter that he, his father and their bird dog had with an opossum years ago.
“The possum rolled over and played dead, and then the dog didn’t like the smell and walked off, with kind of a disgusted look on his face,” he said.
He wonders whether that effect extends to wild predators.
“You’ll see an opossum and you think, ‘Why didn’t a coyote or a fox get him?’ Well, they kind of smell bad,” he said.
‘The Cats Refuse To Eat The Babies’
Another Goshen County resident, Tammy Sterkel, who lives in the country near Lingle, told Cowboy State Daily that her cats have turned their noses up at baby opossums.
“My cats will not eat the babies. Even though they look like a rat, the cats refuse to eat the babies,” she said.
Sterkel, Bauer and other Wyoming residents reached out to Cowboy State Daily regarding the story of an opossum showing up in a family’s garage in Pine Bluffs.
The story noted that wildlife experts have listed Wyoming as a state that doesn’t have an officially recognized permanent population of the critters.
Opossums Far And Wide
Opossums have apparently been in Goshen County for decades.
Rolf Amundson told Cowboy State Daily they also hang around his place in Platte County.
“We have no shortage of them out where I live,” he said. “I live about 8 miles southwest of Wheatland. I’ve been here 20 years, and I’ve always had them out here.”
There are also numerous raccoons around, but Amundson said they’re picky eaters compared to opossums.
“Sometimes the cat dish gets a little rank and the raccoons won’t touch it. But the possums will come and clean it up,” he said. “It seems like the worse something stinks, the more they like it.”
As to how far west in Wyoming opossums have ventured, Sterkel said her husband, Gary, has seen them while hunting elk in the Snowy Range mountains west of Laramie.
In the far southwest corner of the state, a large, ornery opossum nicknamed George was caught in June 2022 under someone’s house west of Rock Springs, the Sweetwater County Sheriff’s Office reports.
Because opossums are “an animal that is not found in a wild, free or unconfined status in Wyoming,” keeping them as pets “is strictly regulated,” the SCSO said in its report about capturing George.
An outdoor camera caught photos of opossums near Rolf Amundson's home in Platte County. (Courtesy Rolf Amundson) 
A Sweetwater County animal control officer holds George, a pesky opossum that was living under a local resident's home in summer 2022. (Sweetwater County Sheriff's Office via Facebook) 
An outdoor camera caught photos of opossums near Rolf Amundson's home in Platte County. (Courtesy Rolf Amundson) 
An outdoor camera caught photos of opossums near Rolf Amundson's home in Platte County. (Courtesy Rolf Amundson)
Egg Thieves
Bauer said he first started seeing opossums while bird hunting with his father west of Torrington in the 1980s.
Sterkel said they’ve been around for as long as she can remember.
“All my life, I’ve seen them here. My husband’s lived out on this farm his whole life, and he’s been seeing them around the entire time,” she said.
The opossums are terrible around chicken coops, she said. They frequently steal eggs and sometimes even kill chickens.
In the past two months, they’ve trapped 11 opossums near their chicken coops and trapped 16 last year, Sterkel said.
“They also love the cat food, I can tell you that,” she said.
Bauer said he also traps opossums occasionally. He drives them a few miles away from his place and sets them loose.
Sterkel and Bauer said that sardines make the best opossum bait.
“Use sardines,” Bauer said. “If you had any skunks around or any opossums around, they’re absolute suckers for it.”
Baring Teeth
Sterkel said the opossums around her place are “nasty little creatures” with bad attitudes.
“They don’t play dead with the humans. If the dogs are out, they’ll play dead,” she said.
Sometimes the opossums bare their teeth and hiss at her, she said.
“With the hissing and the teeth, they’ll startle you if you’re not expecting them,” she said.
Bauer said one thing that baffles him is how opossums manage to survive Wyoming winters.
“When you see them, they sure don’t have a lot of fur, and they’ve got nothing on their tails,” he said.
Mark Heinz can be reached at mark@cowboystatedaily.com.
