Earlier this week, my wife and I saw three baby opossums in our yard. They were clearly younger and smaller than those I have seen clinging to the backs of their mothers in the past; newborn opossums generally nurse until they are two months of age and thereafter fend for themselves. Within two days of spotting the babies, I found all three is various stages of dismemberment, likely the victims of cats, owls or raccoons. It seems apparent that they were either abandoned by their mother or, more likely, that she herself was killed.
Premature death is, of course, common in the animal kingdom. Young birds and cottontails are often the victims of snakes, raptors and carnivorous mammals, including domestic cats. Indeed, the very young, the injured and the frail are the usual targets of natural predation, a process that keeps populations in check and maintains the overall health of the species and its ecosystem.
We prefer to focus on the beauty and serenity of nature but, to truly understand her cycles, we must acknowledge the roles that violence, death and decomposition play. Nature is neither fair nor sentimental.
