Well, it looks like at least one judge in North Carolina must be a long-lost relative of Gomer and Goober Pyle.\u00a0 “Surprise, surprise, surprise!”<\/p>\n
Seems as if the town of Brasstown, NC, has an . . . um, unique New Year’s tradition. Along with the bear stew and musket shooting, each year they have a “possum drop” on New Year’s Eve.<\/p>\n
What’s a “possum drop”, you ask? In Brasstown’s “possum drop”, the opossum isn’t actually dropped at all. Instead, an opossum is humanely captured during hunting season.\u00a0 It’s kept caged fed and caged until New Year’s Eve. On New Year’s Eve, the opossum is suspended in its cage. At midnight, the cage is lowered as part of the town’s New Year’s Eve festivities.<\/p>\n
Think a low-tech version of the Times’ Square New Year’s Eve apple drop – Appalachian Style.\u00a0\u00a0 The opossum is afterwards released back into the wild.<\/p>\n
The person who captured the opossum even gets a special permit from the NC Wildlife Resources Commission (WRC).\u00a0 That permit allowed them to display the opossum at his country store between capture and release vice killing it.<\/p>\n
Well, that’s the way it used to work.\u00a0 One less dead opossum during hunting season, who gets well fed and and cared for\u00a0 and then released.\u00a0 Everybody’s happy, and no harm – right?<\/p>\n
Well that was the case for 20 years or thereabouts. Then PETA got involved.<\/p>\n
Predictably, PETA saw all of this as “cruel treatment” of the opossum. So they took the state to court. Their argument? The retention of the opossum captured during hunting season was unlawful.<\/p>\n