Hunting Can Be An Opportunity Beyond The Kill

My brother-in-law, Henry Camirand, and I decided to get in a day of pheasant hunting last Tuesday. We hit Hopkinton to no avail. Finally, we headed for Epsom, with hopes of finding pheasant. As we slowly drove past a field, we saw six pheasant near the roadside in the field apparently eating berries. Although the land was not posted, we felt we needed to ask permission to hunt the field. We drove to the house up at the other end, but nobody was home. We then decided to try another location and return later. 

We hunted another area for two hours with no results and decided to return to the landowner’s house. On the way past the field, we saw the pheasants were still there. We pulled over to observe them when a school bus came by and scared the birds away. They flew across the field to the other side and went into the woodlands. We finally met two of the family members who informed us that we were welcome to hunt their field.

An opossum mother and her young

Henry and I returned to where we had seen the pheasants, parked off the side of the road got our firearms and headed across the field to where we had seen the pheasants go into the woods. An hour of searching turned up nothing and we decided to check the wooded area at the end of the field. As I entered the woods at the field’s end, something caught my eye. Not 30 feet away, there was a baby opossum slowly climbing up a tree. I wished I had my camera, but it was back in the vehicle. They are not an animal one sees very often. However, both the sight of the pheasants and the baby opossum, certainly made our day. 

There are opossums in New Hampshire, according to New Hampshire Fish and Game Department’s furbearer biologist, Eric Orff, and they are expanding their range northward. Eric says that opossums are relatively new to New Hampshire, gradually moving into the state from Massachusetts in the late 1960s. Rockingham and Hillsboro Counties began to have increasing numbers by the mid-1970s and by the early 1990s, the opossum had moved north into the Lakes Region, sweeping past Lake Winnipesaukee on the east side by the mid-1990s. Apparently, they moved up the major river systems in their advance northward. 

“First they followed the coastal then the Merrimack River and they have now populated the Connecticut River Valley all the way into Coos County. By 2001, a few had made it all the way to Stratford, Columbia and Stewartstown,” Orff said. Eric says that Opossums are the state’s only marsupial. “That is, the females have a pouch on their belly, just like a kangaroo, where the honey-bee-sized babies crawl at birth to spend their first three months of life.” 

There are so many unique things about opossums. They have a long prehensile tail, like a monkey, that aids them in climbing trees. Orff says that although they can snarl and open their mouths wide when threatened, they will also feign death and “play possum”. Most live out their lives within a few hundred yards of where they were born. Over 90% of opossums die before they are two years old. 

Eric says that in New Hampshire, opossums are at the very northernmost edge of their range. Their hairless ears and toes are often blackened or missing from being frozen. Opossums were once thought to not be able to survive such a cold climate, but they just keep plodding north on frostbitten feet.

Now, had we not gone hunting that day, we likely would not have encountered such an interesting creature. It all proves that hunting isn’t just about killing. It’s the chance to get out of the house, into the wilds and see wildlife of all kinds.

Bob Harris can be reached via e-mail at: outwriter2@aol.com

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