I knew something was up with the way Pumpkin, Patchy and Ranger were behaving inside while Susan and I were having breakfast, but I looked out the north windows on the wrong side of the house initially, finding little out of the ordinary. Then, after Jiggy came back in and Ranger paid him waaaaay too much attention, I figured he’d been messing with that rival cat a couple doors down.
After eating, fooled into thinking all was good, I went down the south side of the house and that’s when I found the injured infant opossum laying on the walkway. There wasn’t a lot of blood, but there was a distinct wound on its left side near its front leg. It was breathing regularly, but very lethargic and when I put it in a shoebox it barely even reacted to being picked up. Susan thought a hawk might’ve been involved, but my guess is it was Jig who’d found a new plaything. Dangit.
I didn’t bother getting additional pictures beyond this unflattering one because of its rather dire condition, and instead got going as quickly as I could to the California Wildlife Center about 40 miles away off of Los Virgenes Road in the Santa Monica Mountains between Malibu and Calabasas. Putting 80 miles on my odometer and taking a couple hours off my day for a baby marsupial who may not survive… well, that’s just how I roll.
I’m relieved to report that the little critter made the trip fine and was quickly installed in an incubator to warm it up before an examination is made to determine the extent of its injuries or lack thereof. Hopefully the latter. I’ll probably call and check in a day or so with fingers crossed.
 UPDATE (4.15): I called the CWC today with some trepidation to check on the opossum and I’m sorry to report that it died. They incubated it to bring its body temperature up, gave it IV fluids and administered some Pedialyte, but apparently the internal injuries were just too severe and it passed yesterday.
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