Wednesday, June 17, 2015 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
Tales from a
Sisters
Naturalist
by Jim Anderson
Opossums and
cats in the news
The other day an email
arrived in my in-box contain-
ing a message from a Sisters
resident who was wondering
about opossums in Sisters.
She wrote: “My horse is
showing signs of EPM but
there aren’t opossums in
Central Oregon. The EPM
is contracted through eating
opossum poop, and I get my
hay from a grower in Sisters.”
EPM, Equine Protozoal
Myeloencephalitis, is a dis-
ease that affects the central
nervous system of horses. It
was first discovered in the
1960s, and considered rare,
though recently, an increasing
number of cases have been
reported.
Early research in the
Southeast U.S. identified
the opossum as a host of the
disease. However since that
time it has been learned that
all wildlife can be a host
and vector, but it’s spread
mostly by outdoor cats. As an
example, horses in the Rocky
Mountains have been found
with EPM where no opos-
sum has ever lived — but just
about everyone has a “barn
cat.” And here it is in Sisters,
where no opossum have ever
lived either…
The villain is literally
underfoot, rubbing on the
horse-owners boots. Outdoor
cats are more trouble than
they’re worth, and they
spread some very nasty dis-
eases in their poop.
So much for that; let’s talk
about opossums, the only
native marsupial living in
the wilds of North America.
They are confined to the east
and southeastern latitudes,
and transplanted to the humid
Northwest. When I worked
with OMSI in Portland and
lived in Beaverton, opossums
became part of my life, being
underfoot (literally) 24/7.
I had a U-pick farm in
Beaverton and had to deal
with opossums getting into
my pickling cucumbers and
cornfields. They also made
themselves at home with the
food I gave my goats, geese,
and chickens. I began won-
dering what they did for a liv-
ing in and around Portland.
To help find out I placed
a small, numbered plastic tag
in the ear of every possum I
came into contact with and
released them. People called
me with opossums in just
about every kind of human
contact you can think of, so
to increase those contacts I
asked the Beaverton police
department to give me all
their opossum calls, which
they were delighted to do.
The best one happened
one night when the duty offi-
cer asked me to come to a
home in downtown Beaverton
where a resident was com-
plaining about “burglars” in
his home.
I got there just in time to
hear the home-owner say,
“I tell ya’ I can hear them in
the walls trying to get in my
house!” The officer in charge
looked at me and I asked the
fellow where he could hear
them. He marched us off to a
hallway and kicked the wall
with his foot, “Right here!”
he said.
I dropped to my knees (it
was a lot easier back then)
and took out my stethoscope
and listened to the wall. He
was right, I could hear all
kinds of bustling behind the
sheetrock. “Yep,” I said, “I
can hear ’em too.” And with
that the guy took his jiggle-
saw and proceeded to cut out
a suitcase-sized piece of the
sheetrock.
Two things happened
almost simultaneously as he
cut the hole in the sheetrock:
first, a huge mass of plastic
bags came tumbling out of the
hole, and at the same moment
one of the officers
investigating the back-
yard shouted,”Hey,
inside the house, you
gotta come and see
this!”
We all hurried to
were the officer was
standing, and in the
light of his torch we
could see 40 or more
opossums headed
right for a bunch of
Volvo cars and sta-
tion wagons filling the
backyard. That’s when
photo by JiM anderSon
we discovered the guy
was not only a Volvo An opossum squatter living in the glove box
rebuilder, he was also of an old Volvo.
operating a thriving
opossum breeding colony that cold, wet winter nights of the
were about to move in with Northwest.
him. There were opossums in
And yesterday I read an
every car — sometimes up to interesting scientific paper on
three or four; under the seats, how opossums can be effec-
behind the dashboards, in the tive in controlling tick popu-
trunks, and one that was liv- lations. Seems opossums
ing in a glove compartment.
naturally go about collect-
The most astonishing thing ing ticks all over their warm
about all this was the presence bodies as hosts for the tiny
of hundreds upon hundreds of arachnids, they then gobble
plastic bags in each opossum them up and go out of their
hidey-hole. That mystery was way to slurp more up as they
quickly solved when one of stumble and fumble through
the officers called out, “Look the underbrush of their native
at this!” His light was fol- countryside.
lowing a couple of opossum
That said, PLEASE all you
scooting across the yard car- wonderful people, don’t bring
rying a bunch of plastic bags any opossums into Sisters
with their prehensile tails.
Country to help kill off our
I had a hunch plastic bags ticks —and — if you have a
were some kind of insula- pet cat at home, please keep it
tion opossums used to keep inside and teach it to poop in
their ears from freezing in the the toilet.
Outlaw Booster Club Inaugural
Outlaw Hall of Fame
Dinner & Induction Ceremony
June 25, 2015
Social at FivePine 5:30 p.m.
Dinner & Ceremony 6:30 p.m.
2015 Inductees:
Sisters High School Class Of 1993
Dr. Susan Hyde (SHS ’96)
Mr. Bob Macauley (SHS 1992 – 2011)
Mr. Stan Williams (SHS ’58)
1996 Volleyball HS State Champions
Mr. Ron Phillips (SHS ’58)
Sisters Starry Nights
Mr. AJ Demaris (SHS ’62)
Dr. Leonard Langeliers (SHS ’57)
Mr. Jon Justin (SHS ’98)
Surprise Inductee
19th Annual Outlaw Open
at Aspen Lakes
June 26, 2015 at 1 p.m.
Scramble Golf & Catered Barbecue
All Proceeds Benefi t All Sisters Schools’ Co-Curricular Activities.
www.shshalloffame.org • 541-617-0707
Outlaw Booster Club is a 501(c)(3) organization.
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