I have changed (with pictures)

I have lived in the country my whole life. Pests and varmints are a way of life out here. This 'possum comes acallin' every night. We have 13 outdoor cats, they require a fair amount of food to maintain but we don't have a serious rodent problem either. We will be lucky to have 5 by spring. We do have a few marsupials who enjoy a cat food meal yet return only used cat food..they don't do anything but eat free lunches, defecate, and screw. They are a necessary part of nature, their job is to clean up messes no other creature larger than an insect will touch. They do this job happily, but when I am buying the food, the recipient must be returning something. We feed the squirrels and birds for the pleasure of seeing them. There really is no pleasure in seeing a 30 pound rat eating food I paid for and leaving a giant human sized turd on my porch. Now opossums are fairly docile (read stupid) and slow moving. In the past I would have quickly dispatched this interloper without even a second thought. Last winter I found 2 on my porch eating cat food. I retrieved the shotgun and they didn't return again. After that I felt bad for a day or two. This was the first time I have been remorseful about killing a pest. Now don't misunderstand, I have never went looking for things to kill (with no intention of eating it)nor have I ever taken pleasure in doing it, it is just a reality of country living. We kill our occasional coyote, opossums and skunks. Now I am devising a plan to relocate this critter rather than killing him. I don't know what to attribute this change of heart to...maybe age breeds compassion?

I think he liked the figs from our trees. Our dog treed him twice, but we think he's kind of cute.
Too bad you don't have an outdoor table with non-climbable legs that the cats could jump up on to eat.
Possums climb, but I really don't think they jump very well! I think the possum would look for food elsewhere.

Pretty good argument against killing coyotes. Why are they considered pests?

Relocating a possum might be hard - our neighbor used to relocate raccoons, but possums - I really have no idea.

It's great that you've had a change of heart. I wish more people did. Live and let live. Every single creature is here for a reason, part of an extremely fine-tuned ecosystem. We're all just trying to survive and live a reasonably enjoyable life, possums, coyotes, etc. included.

The first respondant's suggestion about elevating the cat food is a good one -- maybe a table with central base and big round body, w/o legs to shimmy up. The raccoons might devise a way, but the opossums probably won't.

Coyotes are pretty over populated out here on the prairie. Years ago they did not get over populated because fur harvesters hunted them. For the last 20+ years the fur market has not been good. The result has been over population. The over population has lead to higher rates of rabies and a severe problem with mange. As I said above we loose a lot of cats (and chickens), many are eaten by coyotes. My wife had one growling at her while feeding our chickens one night, we can't have that. As with all wildlife I don't seek to eliminate the species just control the population around my farmstead, there is 1000 acres surrounding my 5 acre farmstead where they are left alone.

I will look at changing my feeding setup. Opossums would be pretty easy to relocate as they move so slowly they are easy to catch.

My problem is with killing something for no reason. I deer hunt every year to cull the population and we eat venison year round. Deer hunting is vital to healthy populations and controlling property damage. We determine each year how many we need to cull. Occasionally we don't kill any, usually we take 6 or so and occasionally we take 12 or more..completely based on the population in a given year.

it is fiction, but includes some population growth/management information.

I do understand your situation -- and I agree with you 100% - no need to kill anything for no reason.

It just seems that human population growth is putting so much pressure on so many species, we're encroaching on so much of their natural habitat and have killed off so many predators and then we wonder why certain other populations are out of whack. And now humans have to figure out how to best restore that balance if possible, and if that includes hunting or culling, so be it. I just wish we hadn't messed it up in the first place (freaking out over wolves, big native cats, etc. - so much misunderstanding.)

I hope you can discourage those big ole possums -- I, too, resent having lots of my dry cat food consumed by the buggers!

and bugs and so earn their keep. I have raised many of them and they are the most mild mannered sweet animal.