Many people encounter possums near their homes and wonder about their habits, particularly their ability to navigate their surroundings. A common curiosity is how these animals define their living spaces and if they can find their way back if they wander or are moved. Understanding their home territories and navigational skills offers insight into effective and considerate coexistence.
Defining a Possum’s Home Territory
A possum’s “home” is a network of temporary den sites within a broader home range. They do not construct their own shelters, instead utilizing existing natural and human-made structures for refuge. These adaptable animals seek out dry, sheltered, and safe locations such as hollow logs, tree cavities, rock crevices, or abandoned burrows dug by other animals. In suburban areas, they readily use spaces under decks, sheds, porches, or even attics and crawl spaces as temporary dens. Possums line these chosen sites with insulating materials like dried leaves, grass, twigs, bark, and even discarded human litter.
Possums often maintain several active dens and rotate among them, typically staying in one spot for only two to three days before moving to another to avoid predators. The size of a possum’s home range can vary significantly, influenced by factors such as food availability, population density, and habitat quality. For instance, in New Zealand, forest-dwelling possums typically have home ranges of 1–4 hectares, while those in more open habitats might range from 30 to 54 hectares. Possums are not highly territorial, and their home ranges frequently overlap with those of other possums.
How Far Possums Can Travel to Return
Possums possess a homing instinct, enabling them to find their way back to a familiar area. However, their ability to successfully return to their home territory significantly decreases with distance. While specific studies on exact return distances are limited, observations indicate they can return from distances of a few miles, such as 3-4 miles. However, the success rate for such returns is generally low, and their navigational skills are limited, especially in unfamiliar terrain.
Factors like the landscape’s familiarity, the presence of obstacles such as major roads or rivers, and the individual possum’s age or health can influence their homing success. Long-distance movements, exceeding 2 kilometers, are primarily observed in juvenile animals, particularly males, during dispersal, rather than as a consistent homing behavior. The further a possum is moved from its established home range, the less likely it is to find its way back.
The Risks of Relocating Possums
Relocating possums, while seemingly a humane solution, carries significant risks and is often detrimental to the animal’s survival. The act of moving a possum far from its established territory causes immense stress and disorientation. This stress can weaken their immune system, making them more susceptible to illness. Relocated possums face challenges in finding new sources of food, water, and shelter, often leading to starvation.
Furthermore, they are exposed to unfamiliar predators and may encounter aggressive competition for resources from existing possum populations in the new area, which can result in severe injury or death. Possums attempting to return to their original home range often face dangers like road accidents. Due to these combined factors, relocated possums generally have very low survival rates. In many regions, relocating possums beyond a very short distance is illegal due to welfare concerns and the potential to spread diseases or disrupt local ecosystems.
Humane Ways to Deter Possums
Instead of relocation, several humane and effective methods can deter possums from areas where they are not wanted. A primary approach involves removing potential food sources that attract them to a property. This includes securing garbage cans with locking lids, bringing pet food indoors, and regularly clearing fallen fruit from trees. Eliminating accessible den sites is also important; blocking access to attics, crawl spaces, and spaces under decks or sheds with sturdy materials like hardware cloth can prevent entry.
Trimming tree branches that extend within 10 feet of a roof can eliminate a common access route to upper areas of a home. Reducing sheltering spots by clearing brush piles, wood piles, and overgrown vegetation also makes a property less appealing. Motion-activated lights or sprinklers can startle and discourage possums. Applying strong scents that possums dislike, such as peppermint oil, cayenne pepper, garlic, or predator urine, around problem areas can also be effective, although these may require frequent reapplication.