Florida, private property
Dead Opossum Removal
Opossums are common in Florida towns, FWC says, because they will eat nearly anything left out, from pet food to garbage. A badly frightened opossum can also lie stiff with its eyes open, drooling, for up to four hours, UF/IFAS reports, and may give off a foul-smelling fluid while it does.
Before you pay anyone. Confirm it is dead. Watch from a few yards for the chest rising, and if your dog found it a moment ago, bring the dog in and look again later. If it is a dead female, look from a step back for live young on her back or at the pouch, and leave the handling to whoever lifts her.
What this covers
- An opossum dead in the yard, beside the garbage cans or in the pool
- Under a deck, porch or mobile home, where they shelter
- In an attic or garage roof space, after climbing in from a fence or tree limb
- Under a shed, in a wood pile or in brush along the lot line
- A dead mother with young attached, so the live ones can go to a rehabilitator
Where the limit is
Live opossums, including one that is only playing dead, are outside this service, and so are live young, which belong with a wildlife rehabilitator from FWC's county list. If one crawled behind finished wallboard and no attic or crawl-space route reaches it, the article on a smell coming from a wall explains the options and nobody is sent.
Opossums do not dig their own dens. UF/IFAS lists hollow logs, wood piles, abandoned buildings, gopher tortoise burrows and old squirrel nests among their shelters, and around a Florida house that usually means a deck, a shed or skirting. Tell the operator which, since each one is reached a different way, and a tortoise burrow is protected and left alone.
How a call goes
- Tell us whether you have seen it breathe or move, and whether a dog or a noise had disturbed it moments before.
- If it may be alive, the advice is to leave it, keep pets indoors and check again later. Nobody is sent for a live opossum.
- If it is dead, we ask where it is lying and where the house is. Calls route by ZIP where an operator covers the address, so the location is checked before anything is booked.
- Once a price is agreed, the operator checks the pouch, tells you if there are live young, and takes away the carcass with anything it has soiled.
Questions about this animal
How do I know it is not playing dead?
UF/IFAS says a threatened opossum lies stiff with its eyes and mouth open, drooling, sometimes passing a putrid fluid, and can hold that for as long as four hours. Watch from a distance for breathing. Flies settling on it, swelling, and a smell that keeps building are the signs of a real death.
There are babies on or in the dead mother. What do I do?
FWC says a litter of 7 to 11 young crawls into the pouch to nurse, leaves it at about 80 days and often rides on the mother's back. Live ones go to a wildlife rehabilitator, and FWC publishes a list by county. Florida law does not allow you to keep orphaned wildlife longer than it takes to get it to one.
Do opossums carry rabies?
UF/IFAS describes opossums as nearly immune to rabies. FWC's reporting page for sick and dead opossums still says that anyone bitten or scratched should get medical or veterinary care and contact the county health department at once.
Will the city take a dead opossum from my yard?
In most places, no. Tampa's Solid Waste Department will not go onto private property for a carcass, and Fort Myers keeps its crews out of front and back yards. For one lying in the street, check your city's road service: Tampa collects small dead animals from rights-of-way, while Fort Myers' published pickup names only domestic animals.
Will an operator take a live opossum away instead?
That is a different service from this one. FWC's regional offices give technical advice on opossum problems, and FWC lets nuisance wildlife trappers advertise on its website, though it states that it does not license them.
Not sure this is the right page? Who removes a dead animal in Florida works through the public and private split, and the county pages give the published position where you live.