Opossum thinks I'm her mom
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NewsTranscript
00:00 Rose arrived as a teeny tiny little baby.
00:03 She was the sole survivor when her mom and siblings were hit by a car.
00:07 I am Claire and this is Rose's story for GeoBeats.
00:10 I am the executive director for a wildlife nurture sanctuary.
00:14 It is all run out of my home.
00:16 What are you doing Rose?
00:18 We take in many hundreds of animals every year.
00:21 When Rose arrived, she was really badly injured.
00:25 I grew attached to her immediately.
00:27 [Music]
00:34 Often the animals with head trauma, they lose their sense of fear
00:38 and they instantly have more of a connection with you.
00:41 Because she was in such bad condition, it was really touch and go with her for at least two months.
00:46 I too fed her every morning when I would wake up.
00:49 I would run to her incubator and check on her.
00:51 Hey guys.
00:52 I was so afraid she wasn't going to make it through the night.
00:54 But she did come through it and it was just amazing to see her actually survive and get well.
01:00 [Music]
01:02 Rose has no fear of any animal.
01:04 She loves my dog.
01:05 She loves her awesome crew that she lives with.
01:08 [Music]
01:16 And she loves Hazel the groundhog and numpeg.
01:19 Actually Rose and the groundhog get along especially well.
01:22 You got a little something on your face, friend.
01:26 They haven't started hibernating yet, but they are sleeping a lot more.
01:30 And Rose will often be curled up with them.
01:32 Hi guys.
01:33 [Music]
01:36 She gets along with everybody.
01:38 I get a lot of especially injured animals.
01:40 Some of the babies, they need a lot more attention to help them really to survive.
01:44 And Rose is such a gentle, sweet girl.
01:47 She'll kind of let them curl into her.
01:49 Cutie patootie.
01:50 And they feel a lot safer having an opossum.
01:53 It feels like their mom.
01:54 And so Rose is sort of the surrogate mom.
01:56 Hey, Rose.
01:57 When she was about six months old, we realized for certain that she would not be releasable.
02:02 She had healed enough, but she would never be able to figure out finding food in the wild on her own.
02:08 [Music]
02:13 Oh, no.
02:14 Chewing is a little bit of a challenge for her.
02:16 She can do it, but she drops food a lot and she can't find it.
02:20 All of my trauma opossums share my bedroom with me, and they get to free roam my bedroom, office, and bathroom area.
02:27 Just a few adorable friends enjoying their meal.
02:30 And it's made completely safe for them so they can't hurt themselves because they do need a little more monitoring than the average opossum.
02:37 Rose is the fastest eater.
02:39 Rose identifies with humans and groundhogs more than she does opossums.
02:43 Hey, Hazel. Is Rose stealing your food?
02:46 Groundhogs can be very vocal when they're feeding, even with each other.
02:49 So if they feel like someone's taking more than their fair share, they start, like, yelling at them.
02:54 And so Rose is always taking more of her fair share.
02:56 Hazel will yell at her, which is very adorable.
02:59 Hazel.
03:00 It's funny. When people come to visit, they have no idea that we have so many animals in the house because opossums are just naturally very quiet animals.
03:08 I feel like they have this slight scent of sesame oil, but otherwise they don't have much of a smell.
03:13 I do not think opossums can make good pets.
03:16 They're happiest in the wild.
03:18 The only reason that I have opossums like Rose is because they couldn't survive in the wild.
03:23 And I wish that she could have returned to the wild, but since she couldn't, I make it my life's mission to give her the best life possible indoors.
03:31 And I think she is really happy.
03:33 [Music]