What prey species benefits the most when you catch and kill an opossum? In your opinion what prey species is most affected by an opossum throughout the year? I'm working on educational mounts to show the public the good that trapping each predator does for the animals down the food chain. I'm interested in your thoughts and what and how many each opossum may eliminate in a year.

In my area, since we dont have quail, I would guess turkey nests would benefit the most. Maybe rabbit nests

Ground nesting birds.

Insects benefit the most when you kill an opossum.

Keith

wood tics .Just check the chicken site ,they think possum eat 5000 tics a year

I'm convinced that I save more red fox a year by catching possums because they are constantly in my best fox sets.
Seriously I've always wondered if they get into the turkeys nests

Buzzards and car mirrors. More killed trapping = less road kill. Buzzard sitting in road eating vehicle comes around corner and buzzard can’t take off fast enough. Mirror/ grill gets broken. I have paperwork and data input to back this up. Might still have photos some where.

This

all nesting birds, I had a picture of a possum in a tree eating the young, would be a great mount, also have caught possum loaded with tick,

The next possum in line will benefit the most with less competition.

Turkey

The world.

This ^^^^

I would say all nesting birds, not just ground nesters. In my opinion possums have the best nose in the woods. They can sniff out baby birds in nests in trees and bushes. Also a benefit to all types of turtles, again they sniff out the eggs.

I feel it helps the trapper the most. If you only catch one egg eater, all you have done is change who ate the eggs. I looked at number from Delta Waterfowl for eight years . Not what they print, I saw the number of nests tracked and the number of eggs in them, the number of egg eaters taken and how many were ate by what. Delta prints percentages, not hard numbers and never talks about the number of egg eaters removed. Numbers may very in other parts of the country, but I have a pretty good idea what happens here.

Kill grinners and it is more food for crows, buzzards and others.

Bryce

I do noticed when the coon population is down the possum population is noticeably higher not sure why just what I’ve noticed.

I have to think that the removal of each possum, coon, skunk and other furbearers can really make a difference.

That is what most think. We trapped our blocks 123 days and had 100's of traps out. Delta did a nest drag on a block that wasn't trapped within a couple miles of each trapped block. Some times the control block had a higher nest rate than the trapped block, even after taking 100's of egg eaters. Delta considered it a success if you raised the hatch rate 15 %. When you trap full time to make such a little difference, catch one or a dozen does little.