The Opossum, Weapon of Rat Destruction
Re “Fighting Virus Could Let Rats Roam,” Sept. 5:
Southern California has an effective, easy and, best of all, free method of rat control available at its disposal right now: the opossum.
While some people consider the opossum just a big rat itself, nothing could be further from the truth.
Rats do not thrive where there is a healthy opossum population.
They compete for the same food (insects, spiders, garbage, carrion), and though the opossum is extremely docile and not a hunter by nature, it will eat infant rats in the nest when it comes upon them.
Let the opossum do the job it was designed to do. It is a clean, nonaggressive, nontoxic solution to a lot of vector problems, and best of all, it’s not coming out of the Orange County Vector Control District’s budget.
Elizabeth Murray
La Habra
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