>>The Wildlife Center of Virginia is one of the world's leading teaching and research hospitals for wildlife and conservation medicine.

Each year, the center provides state of the art, veterinary and rehabilitative care for nearly 3000 wild animals with one goal in mind, returning the animal to its natural habitat.

(uplifting music) >>If you were to sit down and try to make a list of all of the beautiful wildlife species that live in the world, the charismatic species, the ones that inspire us, the elegant, the graceful, it'd be a long list, but there's almost certainly one animal that would not be on that list, and that is lowly opossum.

The Virginia opossum, its formal name, or sometimes just the possum is the only marsupial we have in the United States.

And while it may not be beautiful and charismatic, and there aren't any sports teams named after it, it's one of the most successful mammals we have.

We've actually found fossils of possums that are almost identical to our modern mammals that go back 60 million years.

The modern opossum was once a contemporary of the saber toothed tiger, the woolly mammoth, and the other prehistoric creatures that we know only through fossils.

But today, the opossum lives among us as one of the most adaptable omnivores that we have.

They're found in the wilderness areas and mountaintops.

They're found in suburbia, and even in the inner city.

The opossum does adapt.

(gentle music) One of the reasons that the opossum has been so successful and so diverse in array of environments are the special adaptations it has with which it goes through its daily routine.

Unlike many mammals that have paws or hooves, the opossum actually has hands on all four feet, with very distinct individual digits.

Its back feet, as a matter of fact, have an opposable thumb, which give it great dexterity when manipulating things or when climbing trees.

In addition to those very, very sensitive hands that they have on all four feet, the opossum has another advantage.

It has a prehensile tail, just like many new world primates, It can use that tail just like a fifth limb, a fifth hand, if you will.

Now, there are a lot of characters and cartoons that show possums hanging by their tail or hang upside down when they sleep and that's really not true.

But they can indeed, grip a branch, hold on to something with their tail, and actually prevent themselves from falling out of a tree, should something try to shake them loose, a predator try to pull them out, or simply they put their feet in the wrong place.

It's like a safety belt built in, that they can take with them wherever they go.

And that's especially important for the young possums that are just learning to manipulate and find their way around their environment.

That prehensile tail, basically has no hair on it.

And for that reason, an awful lot of people want to try and lump the opossum in with rats and rodents.

Of course, there's no relationship there at all.

The opossum is a marsupial and while there are about 100 species or a few more around the world in that family group, the opossum is our only marsupial living in the United States and Canada.

And they've been here for a very long time, 60 million years, but a lot's changed in that time.

Fortunately, for the opossum, they are just adaptable.

They change right along with their environment.

But there are some limitations.

They say that the most important job of an animal species is to perpetuate itself, to continue the DNA, to continue the species in the environment.

Well, the opossum has developed a very, very effective strategy for survival, that's obviously worked because they've been around for 60 million years.

Opossums have a very short life.

In nature they will live an average of two to three years and they go through the entire aging process during that third year, within the last six months of their lives, they go through an entire geriatric change.

They begin to lose weight, their skeleton changes, and they get old and they get old fast, but during their short lives, they have been very successful to make the most of the time that they had.

The adaptations strategy that has enabled the Virginia opossum to survive for 60 million years in what is now this part of North America is through two things, adaptability, and reproductive capability.

They can change their diet, they can change their living circumstance and really survive and thrive in any type of an environment.

But the most important tool that they have as a survival strategy as a species is simply the capacity to produce a lot of babies.

The females can get pregnant as many as three times a year and deliver three litters in a year's time.

And each one of those litters can include 20 babies.

Now, the remarkable part about all this is that the female is pregnant only between 11 and 13 days.

That's right, less than two weeks she's pregnant before giving birth to as many as 20 babies.

Well, when those babies are born, they're very, very undeveloped.

They're about the size of a honeybee.

But they're pink and they frankly, look a lot more like little grubs than they do little mammals.

But the mother will assist them leaving the birth canal and having to literally crawl up her abdomen and go down into the pouch where her mammary glands are located.

Now the ironic thing is while she can give birth to 20, she only has space for 13 in the pouch.

Her mammary glands have 13 teats, 12 in a circle and one in the middle.

And the first 13 that get there are the only ones with a chance to survive.

After the babies enter the pouch they will stay there nursing constantly for about two and a half months before they will even begin to venture outside the pouch.

Now the mother looks pretty pregnant at that time, but she's given birth months earlier, but those babies have grown inside the pouch and things are getting pretty crowded in there.

So when they reach about two and a half to three months of age, they'll spend part of the day outside the pouch, part of the inside the pouch continuing to nurse intermittently, but by the time they're about three months old, the baby possums called Joey's are completely weaned.

And then life on the outside begins.

When the babies emerged from the pouch, they'll continue to travel around with their mother riding piggyback style by hanging on to the hair on her back.

There can be as many as a dozen of them back there and by the time they're four months old, that's quite a load for mom to carry around.

From time to time, some of them fall off, and she may not even notice, she may not even care.

But as these babies fall off, they are at an age where they are able to care for themselves.

And even though the survival rate of first year opossums is quite low, probably below 50%.

The fact that she's depositing babies along her way as she travels throughout her territory, and throughout the habitat maximizes the chance that some of them will survive.

And if you think about the math, three litters a year of up to 13 babies per litter that could survive and even in a two year lifespan, that's a lot of babies for one female to produce.

And that is one of the ways that the opossum survives (phone ringing) >>Wildlife Center Virginia, this is Caroline.

How can I help you?

>>I just was walking in my neighborhood and found a dead possum, but it has babies hanging off of it.

>>Are the young hanging out of the pouch on the belly or are they crawling all over the mother?

>>They are hanging out of its belly.

>>And what city or county are you located in?

>>I'm in Augusta County.

>>Okay, the baby possums will not be able to survive without its mom at this stage.

They need rehabilitative care to have a chance at survival.

We need to remove those young from her as soon as possible.

Are you comfortable placing the entire deceased adult with all of the babies still attached into a box to bring to the center?

>>Yes, I can do that.

>>Great thanks.

Be sure to also look around the area to make sure there's no extra babies that have been scattered around the mom.

A single possum may have as many as 13 young.

Will you be able to get here soon?

>>Yes, I have to get the box and look around for the babies, then I'll be on my way.

>>Great, see you soon, buh-bye.

>>One of the most common patients we see here at the Wildlife Center Virginia is the opossum and we emit about 300 baby possums a year, also known as joeys.

So our front desk receives multiple calls about possums and about baby animals in general.

And most baby animals that people find that are healthy can just be left alone.

However, since a possum's home is on its mother, if it's under eight inches in length, then it usually does need help.

When baby possums are born, they go into their mother's pouch where they latch on and they remain there for two months.

They remain latched that entire time and developing in her pouch before they move on to hang on to her back.

(gentle music) >>The Virginia opossum is a nocturnal omnivore, they can eat just about anything and that has helped them survive the last 60 million years.

Their skull is larger and sort of oblong and it doesn't really fit the same proportion that many other mammals have.

But it gives him a very long jaw bone.

And in that jaw, they are packing 50 needle sharp teeth and it gives them a variety of teeth with which to consume a variety of foods.

They'll eat vegetable material.

They'll eat insects, eggs, small animals and small birds, if they can catch them.

They're around your house, they'll make short order of any pet food that you leave outside, and they see the garbage can as a buffet line.

But one of the things we need to keep in mind about them as being omnivores, they are largely scavengers, and they're drawn to the smell of something they can eat.

And that unfortunately, is their undoing, because the opossum faces horrible risk at the side of the highway.

Now picture yourself driving down the highway eating an apple.

You finished the apple, what are you going to do with the apple core?

Well, all too many people don't think about that beyond opening the window, throwing the apple core out onto the shoulder of the road and thinking some animal will come along and finish it Well the opossum is often that animal and they are drawn to the side of the road by human litter and the proliferation of human food waste that careless, thoughtless, irresponsible drivers throw out of their cars every single day.

And it takes a terrible toll on the opossum population.

(phone ringing) >>Wildlife Center Virginia, this is Caroline.

How can I help you?

>>I have a baby possum that I found in the window of my house.

It's really small and I don't think it could have climbed out.

>>Can you give me an estimate on how big that animal is?

Would you say it's a larger than a dollar bill?

>>No, it's definitely smaller than that.

>>Okay, so an opossum that small is not old enough to survive without its mother's care, and unfortunately it will need to come in for rehabilitative care.

>>Will its mom come back for it?

>>It's possible to reunite many species.

Unfortunately since possums are marsupial's they don't have a nest.

Baby can only be reunited with its mom if it's still around.

Virginia possums are not very aware if one of their young get separated from them.

>>I live close to Wildlife Center of Virginia, can I bring it to you?

>>Yes, we're here until 5:00 p.m. Are you heading this way now?

>>Yes, I'll be there soon.

>>Great, see you soon, buh-bye.

>>When baby possums are born the joeys crawl into their mother's pouch, where they latch on and remain latched on for about two months.

During this time, they feed 24 hours a day.

The milk is just supplied constantly into their mouths.

They don't suckle like other mammals.

When baby possums come to the Wildlife Center, they're examined by either the vet team if they are deemed sick or injured, or they're given a physical exam by the rehabilitation team if they're a healthy orphan.

We check over every part of the possum from head to tail, making sure there are no cuts or no broken bones.

And then we decide whether they are male or female based off of whether or not they have a pouch and we paint each possum with a different color nail polish just a dot on the top of their head, that way we can tell who is who during the rehabilitation process.

For feeding baby possums they have specialized anatomy.

As I said they don't suckle on their mothers like other mammals do, so they're better fit to be tube fed.

So we measure each possum the length from their mouth to their stomachs, and we insert a feeding tube feeding them directly into their stomachs.

We feed them a specialized formula.

It's developed specifically for possums, they have a higher calcium requirement then other mammals and if they don't receive that calcium, they can have developmental issues.

We figure out how much formula a baby possum needs for a day and then we divide that up into multiple feedings, feeding small amounts at each time.

When baby possums come in really young, they have a higher humidity requirement than other mammals because they're used to living in their mother's pouch.

So for a while they're kept in our ICU and incubators.

We make sure that their humidity level is appropriate, and we check their hydration level at each feeding.

As soon as they're big enough, they're moved outdoors into our mammals complex, after we've given them a couple days of acclimation to get used to the outside.

(gentle music) >>Over the last 16 million years, the opossum has developed some extremely effective defense strategies.

Now originally, and for the last 60 million years, they were primarily defending themselves against predators.

But today, the defense strategies that were developed through millennia of evolution are not really serving the possums all that well, when they enter the highway.

Now, one of the things about an opossum that really becomes startling is when you see them in a panic situation, the first thing they will do is freeze, eyes wide, looking around trying to figure out what to do.

And believe me, you can't always count on them to do the logical thing.

Many times if a car is approaching on the highway, they'll stop right in the pavement.

Even though they have plenty of time to cross the road or to go back.

I have seen a opossums when being approached by a speeding car, turn and run straight at the headlights.

Because blinded by the light, they become disoriented and confused.

Those aren't real good survival strategies in the highway.

Now one of the other things about the opossum that is really fascinating, is when they feel stressed, they faint.

They literally will fall over, if they've been attacked by a predator or they think they're going to be or something else has happened and they pass out.

Their mouths will open, their tongue will hang out.

They give a horrible smell from their animal glands.

And for all the world, they look like they're dead.

Now for many predators, they don't eat dead things.

They go on and find something else to eat, leaving the opossum alone.

And if all goes well, after a few minutes, he'll wake up, pop up and go on about his business.

But unfortunately, that strategy doesn't work well in the highway either.

When the opossum is in the road, even if he's not hit by a car, sometimes the passing vehicle will frighten him so much he passes out in the highway.

And that certainly increases the chances that another car following along will run over the animal or he'll be injured or killed.

So for me when I find it on an opossum in the road, I always try to stop and check it, if it's safe to do so.

And of course, human safety always comes first.

But if the opossum is lying there in the road, with no obvious sign of injury, he may be a healthy opossum, simply freaked out and passed out.

And if you can safely move into the shoulder of the road with no obvious injuries, he may get up and go on about his way and live out the rest of his life.

Even those that are injured, will sometimes pass out even in the face of their injury.

So they can be more easily moved and transported or a rehabilitator or a wildlife expert can be called to come and assist.

But those defense strategies don't serve the opossum well.

It's up to us to reduce the risk of the highway.

>>So the most common causes of injuries for adult possums that we see at the Wildlife Center are those that were hit by a car or attacked by a dog.

And most of the time, those types of traumatic events results in things like broken bones, fractured skulls, fractured ribs, and then injuries to the skin and the soft tissue.

At the Wildlife Center Virginia we see over 150 different wildlife species per year.

Opossums can provide some unique medical challenges because of their unique physiology and metabolism.

They're marsupial's and they have a relatively short lifespan when compared to other mammals, in addition to having a lower body temperature when compared to other mammals.

That lower body temperature means that they sometimes metabolize the medications that we give them a lot slower than our other patients.

And speaking of a low body temperature, there's a myth that opossums cannot have rabies.

This is false.

Any mammal can contracts and spread rabies, it's just that a opossums tend to not have as many receptors for the rabies virus as some of the more commonly considered species such as bats and raccoons.

Sadly, sometimes we see possums that have been injured intentionally by humans.

We've admitted possums that have been shot with BB guns or shot guns, and then sometimes other types of injuries as well.

In another sense, we've admitted several possums that were found as babies by well intentioned humans, but kept us pets instead of allowed to live a life in the wilds.

These possums become imprinted on their human caretakers and they become habituated to a life in captivity.

Of course, those baby possums grow up to be adults, and people realize they don't want them anymore, and therefore they end up at centers like ours.

Unfortunately, public perception of opossums is not always one out of love and understanding.

Some people view possums as a threat to their livestock and their pets.

But really, possums are excellent guests to have around your property.

It's important to learn how to coexist with our wildlife.

It's their home too.

(gentle music) >>I think that opossums are maybe one of the most misunderstood animals out there.

I think that because of that, what people don't understand they sometimes might be afraid of or think that opossums are gross or dirty.

When opossums themselves feel scared threatened, one of their first mechanisms of defense is to look and act really tough and really scary and look really aggressive.

They'll do that by opening their mouths wide enough to bear all 50 of their teeth.

They'll hiss, they will grow.

But truthfully, it's mostly for show.

Opossums aren't great fighters, but they're so good at acting tough and scary that sometimes that can result in negative interactions or negative perceptions between humans and opossums.

Like all of the animal ambassadors at the Wildlife Center, the education of possums are really important in that they symbolically are more than just one single opossum.

They represent their stories and their backgrounds and the reasons why they're non releasable represent all opossums and they help us to educate the world.

So during our education programs that feature opossums, we will see about things, for example, like their physical adaptations.

Opossums are really unique animals, and they have some fascinating ways of interacting with the world around them.

It is one thing to speak about an opossum's toes, the fact that they have opposable thumbs and opposable toes.

It's one thing to speak about the fact that they have 50 teeth.

It's one thing to just speak about the fact that they have prehensile tails.

But the way that our opossums help us is by bringing those ideas to life.

Again, just to speak about something is certainly a way of educating but to have a real life example of what we're talking about.

For instance, if I speak about an opossum's prehensile tail, to turn around, and point to and speak about that long, hairless, grasping tail, is a method of education that really helps us to elevate the effectiveness of translating these ideas to audience members.

I definitely think that these education opossums help people to not only appreciate opossums more but understand them more.

Usually when people interact with opossums in the real world, or maybe when a possum interacts with a person, sometimes that interaction is negative.

Most of the time, they're getting into somewhere where we really don't want them to be, maybe a garbage can that's left outside, maybe pet food that's been left on a back porch or something.

So by having these educational possums, being able to give audience members the chance to see them in a different light, definitely helps them to appreciate them as animals.

However, we do always make a point to say that we don't want people to go overboard with their affection for opossums.

It's all too common that infant or young opossums are taken from the wild and kept as pets.

And while that's tempting, especially seeing how cute some of them are in person, really, it's important to understand that they are crucial members of their ecosystems and as wild animals, that's where they belong.

By understanding and being more knowledgeable about opossums, I definitely think that people appreciate them more.

For instance, opossums are kind of unique in that they could be called tick vacuums, because of their short stature because their bellies and stomachs are pretty close to the ground, as they walk through scrub or underbrush, they end up being a prime target for ticks, unbeknownst to the ticks.

It's estimated that in an opossum will eat about 90 to 95% of the ticks that find their way to an opossum's stomach and again, it's estimated that in a single season, an adult opossum might consume and destroy thousands of ticks.

That's just one opossum.

So by destroying those ticks opossums are actually helping to keep their ecosystems and habitats more healthy, by eliminating any chances of harmful diseases or viruses being transmitted from those ticks to other animals.

>>You know, there are things that each and every person can do to help wildlife in general and the Virginia opossum, in particular.

First of all, with many forms of wildlife, there are things we can avoid.

Don't provide these animals access to garbage or outdoor pet food, don't deliberately habituate them to come to your house for food.

In so many cases of fed animal is a dead animal because they don't know one house from the other.

You feed them, you love them.

They may go to your neighbor's house, and they will find a very different situation.

But what you can do is as you're out driving around at night, be on the lookout for the Virginia opossum, beside the road, the bright shiny eyes, and a possum in the headlights look.

And as you see them, just adjust your driving speed, just be mindful that that animal is really not sure what to do.

And above all, don't assume that they're going to do the logical thing.

If they're on the shoulder the road as you're speeding by, they may not figure it out, that the safest place to be is on the shoulder of the road, they may rush to the destination in which they were headed before, which puts them right in harm's way.

Now as you are looking for the opossum, understand that their reaction to your automobile may be completely contrary to common sense.

They may run at the lights, they may stand perfectly still, until you start around them and then freak out and run in front of you.

You have the foot on the brake and possums need a break.

Now the biggest thing we really encourage people to do is learn to love and appreciate the wildlife around us.

The Virginia opossum is a living fossil.

You can look at those animals, understand their adaptations and their natural history and see how the world used to be.

And I'm sure you'll be glad you did.

(momentous music)