"Algae specialists, long near the bottom of the biology food chain, are becoming the rock stars."

Bourne, National Geographic, Oct. 2007

Saturday, October 8, 2011

Playing Possum

Our cat Jack has been missing for nearly a week now.  We've posted on lost pet websites, craigslist, etc and physically delivered 500-600 flyers around our neighborhood.  As sightings came in, we decided to purchase a couple live traps and bait them with tuna.

One of these traps we put at the edge of a neighborhood "wilderness area."  The other is at the back of our apartment complex property.  Both are places where a large, black cat has been seen and the two locations are perhaps within half a mile of each other.

For two days now, I have gotten nothing in the trap in our complex.  After one night on the edge of the wilderness area.... possum.  The poor little guy (he really wasn't very big) was waiting patiently, having finished off the can of tuna.  My husband was concerned.  In his days as a paperboy, he was once chased by a possum "the size of a dog."  He brought the Maglite along just in case things got ugly. 

Of course, everything was fine.  Naturally, friend possum hissed and growled at me, but after I convinced him the trap door was open (this required some upending of the cage and shaking) he trotted off. 

At least it wasn't a skunk.

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