THE brushtail possum is renowned for its sweet tooth. And this little Logan guy’s love of sugary treats got him into a spot of bother.
RSPCA wildlife ambulance officer Chantel Sibilla found him, head stuck in a near empty jar of Nutella, wedged between wheelie bin and fence, early this week.
“I wanted to call him Nutty the moment I saw him there,” she said.
“You know you have a problem when you end up in a situation like that.”
Ms Sibilla used towels to bundle the native up so she could attempt a rescue without getting scratched by his long claws.
“I put lubricant around the outside of the jar and got his head free, first on one side, then on the other,” she said.
“The most amazing thing was the way he tried to help me out, grabbing the jar with his little paws so he help me lever it off.”
Rescued, the possum curled up in the towel and made himself comfortable, Ms Sibilla said.
“Possums can scream and carry on, but not this little guy. He seemed perfectly happy where he was,” she said.
Ms Sibella said the possum was put in a crate and transported back to the RSPCA’s Wacol animal hospital.
“I didn’t know how long he’d been in the jar, so I thought it best to take him in for a check up and to see he wasn’t dehydrated,” she said.
Ms Sibilla said the incident was phoned in by a local.
“He said his dog was going nuts the night before,” she said.
“He had a look and didn’t see anything so didn’t think too much more about it. But when the dog went nuts again the next morning, he went for a walk and found the little guy stuck in a jar and wedged between the fence and wheelie bin.”
The story has a happy ending.
“He was released last night,” Ms Sibilla said.
“The officer who took him out left him somewhere safe but nice and close to where we found him. Brushies are territorial so you wouldn’t want to set him down to far from home.
“I would have loved to have given him a proper send off, but I wasn’t rostered on.”
RSPCA communications officer Michael Beatty said cases like this one were more common than most people thought.
Queensland was the only state in Australia where the RSPCA dealt with possums, koalas, kangaroos and native birds as well as domestic pets.
Mr Beatty urged residents to keep their rubbish secure to avoid more cases like this one.
Last year the RSCPA dealt with 31,000 calls out to native birds and animals, he said.
“Not all those callouts need to come back for treatment. Four years we treated 8500 native animals at Wacol. Last year, the number was 23 000,” he said.
He had no doubt the rises were linked to the pressures of development.
“(Wildlife) habitats get smaller, houses closer to where the animals live and there are more cars and dogs for the wildlife to deal with,” he said.
