“He was stuck tight and very scared.”
When a rescuer from Sydney Wildlife Rescue recently got a call about a possum trapped in a barbecue, the animal expert wasn’t too concerned — possums in the area get stuck in barbecues all the time. But when she arrived at the scene, she quickly realized this rescue would be more complicated than she’d expected.
“The rescuer who attended pictured it stuck under the cover, behind the gas bottle, or some other place where it could be easily grabbed, released and sent on its way,” Sydney Wildlife Rescue wrote in a Facebook post. “Instead, she was lost for words to see this!”
Somehow, the little possum had shoved his head through one of the holes in the barbecue and was now hopelessly stuck.
“There was no seam in the base, no screws that could be undone, no easy access,” Diane, the rescuer, who asked that her last name not be used, told The Dodo.
Diane tried gently moving the possum and carefully pushing his ears against his head, hoping he might slip through, but it wasn’t working. She needed a solution and fast. Then she thought of something — did the homeowner happen to have any olive oil?
Diane applied a bit of the oil around the possum’s neck. Miraculously, her creative solution began to work. In no time, the possum was free.
Too young to return to the wild by himself, the possum was transported to Sydney Wildlife Rescue, where he could grow and recover in safety. Eventually, once he was old enough, he was released back into the wild with a couple of his rescue possum friends from the rehabilitation center.
Diane is glad that, thanks to some quick thinking on behalf of animal lovers, this possum’s story has a happy ending.
“If the homeowners hadn’t phoned us quickly, it would have been a very different outcome,” Diane said. “They’ve saved the life of a little possum.”
