WILDLIFE MUSEUM VOLUNTEER RESCUES ORPHANED MARSUPIALS.Byline: Associated Press Associated Press: see news agency. Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Sylvia Simon must love playing possum Playing possum is a phrase that, taken literally, means to pretend to be dead. It comes from a characteristic of the Virginia opossum, which is famous for pretending to be dead when threatened. - she's done it 75 times in the past three years. Simon volunteers with the Lindsay Wildlife Museum Lindsay Wildlife Museum is a family museum and wildlife rehabilitation center in Walnut Creek, California. The museum is one of the oldest wildlife rehab centers in the United States, and a popular family museum in the San Francisco East Bay Area. in Walnut Creek Walnut Creek, residential city (1990 pop. 60,569), Contra Costa co., W Calif., in the San Francisco Bay area; inc. 1914. It is the trade and shipping center of an extensive agricultural area where walnuts are among the major product. , and works as their designated rescuer for opossums, North America's only native marsupial marsupial (märs  `pēəl), member of the order Marsupialia, or pouched mammals. . Opossums give birth to about 13 young per litter, and the tots spend the first weeks of life clinging to mom's fur. Unfortunately for the little straphangers, they are sometimes scraped off as their mother makes her way through the brush. When that happens, and the baby is found, the museum calls Simon. She raises the orphans until they're 5 months old, feeding them grapes, eggs and kibble kibble baked dough that is crushed or cracked. Prepared usually by extruding and then heating-drying the dough. Used as dry food for dogs and cats. . Opossums are known for hissing and baring their 50 teeth when cornered, but Simon says that's just an act. She's never been bitten. ``They are just sweet, but nobody knows that,'' Simon says. ``They seem to appreciate what you do for them.'' When they are ready to live by themselves, Simon frees the nocturnal creatures at dusk. That gives them the maximum time to seek cover from their natural predators, which include great horned owls. Even so, the average life span for an opossum opossum (əpŏs`əm, pŏs`–), name for several marsupials, or pouched mammals, of the family Didelphidae, native to Central and South America, with one species extending N to the United States. is only three years. ``They have a hard life,'' Simon says. ``I'm basically releasing them to feed the owls, but we hope they have a litter.'' When not being eaten by owls, opossums often dine on dead animals - including road kill. That habit often turns them into road kill themselves, Simon says, since they don't have the speed or reflexes to escape onrushing cars. That's why for many people, the only opossum they see is a dead one. When she sees dead animals on the road, Simon shovels them to the shoulder to give her adopted charges a better chance of survival. She doesn't like to look too closely, however. ``I'm always afraid it might have been one of my babies,'' she says. Her current charge, Millie, is older than most of the opossums she has raised, because the animal lives part time at the Lindsay museum, where she serves as a live exhibit, touring schools as part of an educational program. Millie has a daily routine. She rises at dusk, gives herself a tongue bath, then eats and spends the night wandering the house. At dawn she returns to the laundry basket where she sleeps. Simon dotes openly on Millie. ``She's prettier than your average opossum,'' she says. ``Her nose isn't pointy point·y adj. point·i·er, point·i·est Having an end tapering to a point. .'' CAPTION(S): Photo Photo: Sylvia Simon of Danville, Calif., holds Millie, a 3-year-old opossum at her home. Simon has adopted 75 orphaned opossums over the past three years. Associated Press |
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