Multiple Opossums Have Recently Been Spotted Around Lubbock

Lubbock, just like many other cities, isn’t home to a very wide variety of wildlife. Other than a few different types of birds, prairie dogs, squirrels and the occasional coyote or fox, there aren’t too many critters around. At least that’s what I thought until checking Nextdoor.com this week.

This may be silly and show a bit of ignorance from my end, but I never knew that opossums were native to Lubbock. The only reason I now know they do live in the Hub City is that more than one person has now posted to Nextdoor talking about their experience spotting opossums around their house this week. After seeing those posts I looked it up, and while opossums are not found in the most arid parts of the Texas Panhandle, they're still found in Lubbock.

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The first post I saw was a video from four days ago showing an opossum running past someone’s front door. The person who posted the video said that they had seen the critter before, but they weren’t sure what it was. After some comments from other Lubbockites suggesting it may be an opossum, it became clear that is exactly what it was.

Despite its body blending in with the sidewalk, you can clearly see the pointed nose and dark legs as it peeks its head out of the bushes:

Another post was made last night by someone in a different part of Lubbock saying they saw an opossum around their house, too. They even put food out for the critter at night and found that it had all been eaten by the next morning.

You might think it’s a bad idea to feed the opossum, like how you shouldn’t feed stray cats. However, it's actually not bad to have opossums living near your property. They are not violent creatures, they’re naturally resistant to rabies and snake venom, and they help keep the area clean by eating dead animals and any rotting vegetation that might be around.

Do be aware that they might go after chickens if they're hungry enough, so maybe don’t encourage them to stick around if you keep chickens.