Rescuers Respond to Call About Possum Stuck in Fence

An Australian animal rescue received a call about a possum found dead and wedged between two fence posts. When a rescuer from the organization arrived to locate the supposedly dead animal, things quickly took a turn.

The rescuer with Hamilton Wildlife Shelter in Hamilton, Australia, discovered the stuck mammal on Sunday, Sept. 13, after being “called to a deceased Ringtail Possum that had been caught between two gate poles,” Hamilton Wildlife Shelter shared in a Facebook post. Soon after arriving on the scene, the rescuer discovered that the animal was not, in fact, dead — and got to work rescuing it from the unusual predicament.

Detailing the events that led up to the discovery of the stuck mammal in the post, the rescuer wrote, “I don’t normally go out to dead possums, but as it was high and the member of the public couldn’t check it, I decided I would head there and do a pouch check and remove the body.”

The images shared of the possum before it was removed show it limp, hanging in an upside-down “U” shape while lodged tightly between two metal posts. (Despite how tightly the possum appears to be jammed between the poles, the possum was not purposefully placed there or “crushed” or “compressed”; the animal “was simply stuck” after slipping, the rescuer later clarified in a different post.)

Then the animal’s arm moved, and its eyes opened. “This possum was NOT DEAD!!!” wrote Hamilton Wildlife Shelter on Facebook. “Just unconscious, ice cold and deathly still.”

The rescuer, despite how difficult it was due to the possum’s height and the barbs on the fence, was eventually able to maneuver the possum out of the tight space.

“Nothing was crushing any organs or limbs. Where he was stuck is the thinnest part of a possum, and I was simply able to lift him out once I got him past the barbed wire barbs,” the rescuer explained in the animal group’s post.

Though finally freed, the possum’s condition was worrisome. Thankfully, the animal slowly improved after the rescue, according to the Facebook post.

“He was so cold and barely responsive, but as the day has progressed and with warmth, he has come back to life,” the rescuer with Hamilton Wildlife Shelter wrote of the marsupial, who was also “incredibly bruised and sore.”