What Will A Wildlife Rehabilitator Do With An Opossum After Catching It?

Wildlife Rehabilitators and Opossums

Typically, when you find an opossum in the wild, you are going to want to leave it alone. In most cases, if the opossum is healthy, it will move on its own. You can help it along through various methods, but it will leave at some point.

Sometimes, though, you might need to call someone to pick it up. For abandoned young or injured opossums, you do not want to let them go into the wild alone. Having either go into the wild alone is a sure way to let them die.

To save them, you should call wildlife rehabilitators. They are the people who pick up and remove the opossum, bringing it back to their facility.

What happens next? It depends on the case and situation itself.



Young or Injured

When you find an abandoned young or injured opossum, your first move should be to contact wildlife rehabilitators. If you know for certain that the opossum is either abandoned or unable to care for itself, it cannot stay in the wild. Chances are, it will die if left alone.

As a wild animal, it needs the care of a specialist. It needs the appropriate location and professional to receive the best possible outcome.

Wildlife rehabilitators have everything the opossum needs. They have the location, expertise, knowledge, and capabilities to help opossums grow and recover.

The question remains, what exactly do they do?

Job of the Rehabilitator

As stated above, they help the opossum to grow and recover. They provide medical care, a temporary home, and necessary help to ensure they are healthy.

When the opossum has aged or has recovered fully, rehabilitators will, usually, release it back into the wild. Certain cases may affect release and care, but most opossums will return to the wild once healthy.

The goal of rehabilitators is to care for opossums until they can do the rest for themselves. When the opossum can, they make sure it returns to the wild so that it can live its life fully and naturally.

There are numerous aspects to a wildlife rehabilitator’s job. In the end, their goal is to help the opossum reach or return to full health. Once they accomplish this, they release the opossum back into the wild so that it can live its life as it was meant. Opossums in their care receive the best possible chance at a good life.


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