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Possums: Nature's Garbage Disposal

KEDM Public Radio | By Kelby Ouchley

Published February 9, 2015 at 9:00 AM EST

One wild animal in the bayou state is singularly unique among our native fauna. It has more teeth than any Louisiana land mammal and is even known to fake its own death when threatened. Correctly labeled the Virginia opossum, we all know them simply as possums.

Source: The Mammals of Louisiana and its Adjacent Waters

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Kelby Ouchley

Kelby was a biologist and manager of National Wildlife Refuges for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for more than 30 years. He has worked with alligators in gulf coast marshes and Canada geese on Hudson Bay tundra. His most recent project was working with his brother Keith of the Louisiana Nature Conservancy on the largest floodplain restoration project in the Mississippi River Basin at the Mollicy Unit of the Upper Ouachita National Wildlife Refuge, reconnecting twenty-five square miles of former floodplain forest back to the Ouachita River.

See stories by Kelby Ouchley