Good documentation. Fair enough. Nice, non-confrontational tone, too.
Ain't science great?


On Jan 25, 2008, at 6:37 PM, Mike Patterson wrote:

> From: Verts, B.J. and L.N.Carraway. 1998. Land Mammals of
> Oregon. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
>
> Distribution.? The Virginia opossum is broadly distributed
> in North America east of the Rocky Mountains and in Central
> America; it was introduced into western North America.
>
> The first introduction in Oregon was near McKay Creek,
> Umatilla Co., between 1910 and 1921 (Jewett and Dobyns,1929).
> A population apparently was established there as trappers
> reported catching 212 animals during the 1927-1928 trapping
> season and a specimen collected in the area in 1928 is on
> deposit at the National Museum of Natural History (USNM 248510).
> Bailey (1936:393) considered the species "well established
> and thriving" in that area. However, the population in
> Umatilla Co. apparently was extirpated sometime during the
> 1930s (Kebbe, 1955b).
>
> Populations of D. virginiana were established in northwestern
> Oregon apparently from releases of animals brought to the
> state as pets or novelties (Kebbe, 1955b; Oregon State Game
> Commission,1946b). By 1946, the species was established along
> the lower Columbia, Nehalem, and Young's rivers (Oregon State
> Game Commission, 1946b). Although a Virginia opossum from an
> unexplained source was killed near Salem (Marion Co.) in 1948,
> Clatsop Co. and nearby regions in adjoining counties were
> considered the "only area in the state now known to have opossums"
> (Kebbe,1955b:42). Hammer (1966:8) reported the species south to
> the Benton-Lane county line in 1965 and east to "nine miles east
> of Scio, Linn County, in 1963." Populations now are established
> throughout the Willamette Valley and otber interior valleys,
> and along the entire Pacific Coast. E. W. Hammer (pers.
> comm., 24 March 1968) reported examining a specimen killed on
> U. S. Route 26 in Wasco Co. about 21 km nor~ of the Wasco-
> Jefferson county line. Also, since the claimed extirpation of
> the population in Umatilla Co., numerous additional opossums
> from east of the Cascade Range were reported taken for fur.
>
>
> -- Mike Patterson
> Astoria, OR
> celata at pacifier.com
>
> Gull, you really got me going
> http://www.surfbirds.com/blogs/mbalame/archives/2008/01/
> gull20080105.html
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