Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley

7,000 Opossums and Counting

Woman’s Calling: Saving Marsupials

By Linda Goldston - reprinted from the San Jose Mercury News

Even many wildlife rescuers turn their noses up at Didelphis virginiana: opossums. But Kris Dollard is so devoted to the funny looking critters that she has turned her San Jose home into a hospital for North America’s only marsupial and has helped save more than 7,000 of them.“They’re totally misunderstood,” Dollard said. “They’re sensitive. They’re unassuming. They live for snacks and naps.”

And they’ve been with us for 70 million years, ever since dinosaurs roamed the Earth. The cat-sized mammal with the beady eyes and pointed nose survived; the big guys are long gone.

They may not have the best public image in the world, “but they must be doing something right to have survived for so many years,” said Janet Alexander, Director of Operations for the Wildlife Center of Silicon Valley, where Dollard is a volunteer.

“A lot of people call about them in a panic. They think they’re seeing a 15-pound rat. We talk them down and try to explain how it’s good to have them around.”

As Dollard is quick to point out, opossums will help keep your yards clear of pests. They eat snails and slugs, mice and rats and all types of bugs and insects. They use the tops of fences as sort of an above-ground opossum railroad as they set out in search of food each night, with as many as 13 babies tucked safely inside their pouches.

“If Kris didn’t work so hard for the opossums, it’s quite possible no one else would,” said Laura Croker, who also volunteers at the Center.

There are 30 volunteers on the squirrel rescue team at the Wildlife Center, for example. There are three or four on the opossum team, which primarily consists of Dollard and her housemate, Sandy Lubeck.

Dollard’s love affair with opossums began in 1990, when she signed on as a wildlife volunteer. Now a veterinary technician, she was a bank auditor and foreclosure officer at the time — “basically jobs where people hate you.”

During orientation, she met “Ms. Maybe.”

“They named her that when she came into the Humane Society because she was so tiny,” Dollard said. “She was six weeks old and less than half an ounce, so maybe she’d make it, maybe she wouldn’t.”

Ms. Maybe was an adult when Dollard met her and was used as an educational animal at the Wildlife Center.

“You could pick her up and carry her around,” Dollard said. “She would come up and sniff you and lick you. Then she’d sit on your lap and fall asleep.”

Later, when Ms. Maybe retired from her job as an educational animal and went to live with a volunteer, Dollard would visit her often. Ms. Maybe died about four years later, but Dollard’s passion for the species has grown even stronger.

Because space at the Wildlife Center is limited, Dollard converted her garage into a halfway house for opossums and added several cages outside — all at her own expense. She was determined that no opossum be turned away: “I never put one down for lack of space.”

She helps rescue and rehabilitate about 500 opossums each year.

“Most of them are trapped by residents or we get groups of orphaned babies,” she said.

Dollard can recall many of her charges vividly. “Ms. Face” was cornered in an apartment complex by a group of children.

“She had babies and they knew it, but they kicked her and punched her and beat her. Somebody finally took pity and called animal control. The skin was peeled off one side of her face.

“We took her to the vet and had her sutured. Three to four months later, she and all of her kids were released.”

“Ms. Liberty” had been painted red, white and blue when she was rescued. “We cleaned her up because we were worried about the toxicity of the paint on her skin. She stayed with us a couple of weeks and then went back out.”

“Peg Leg” had a broken leg when he was brought in by homeowners. “We had a vet put a pin in his leg for us. The homeowners would come over to visit him and donated $500. We released him back to their yard and they would send us updates.”

Opossums have a reputation for being dirty, disease-ridden and vicious, but “their body temperature is too low to carry any viruses, even rabies,” Dollard said. “And they’re defensive animals.”

Dollard exhausted all of her savings long ago caring for her beloved opossums and still spends more than she can afford on medicine and vet bills.

“Nobody else likes them,” she said. “That’s really why I started. Bottom line, it’s respect for the underdog.”