Problem Solving

Is It Legal to Kill an Opossum?

Yes, in all seven places we read, once the opossum is damaging your property. California goes furthest: it has no damage test at all. What the wildlife rules do not switch off is the cruelty law. A federal appeals court said a California family had the right to kill an opossum, and one judge on that court still asked whether beating it was cruel.

Yes, in all seven places we read, once the opossum is damaging your property. Texas lets landowners take nuisance fur-bearers "in any number by any means at any time." California allows one to be taken all year. New York, Ohio and Virginia need no permit. Pennsylvania and Ontario lift their protection when property is being damaged.

The wildlife rules answer whether you may kill it. They do not answer how. Every place here also has a cruelty law, and that is the law that put an opossum case in front of a federal court. So the method matters as much as the permission.

We read each rule in its own text or on the wildlife agency's page. Raccoons often turn up at the same feeder, and they have their own page, is it legal to kill a raccoon. So do groundhogs.

What an opossum is, and the words the rules use#

The opossum of North America is the Virginia opossum, Didelphis virginiana. University of California pest experts call it "the only native North American marsupial," meaning the young grow in a pouch. It is "about the size of a house cat," with "coarse grayish fur, a pointed face," hairless ears and "a long hairless prehensile tail." Most weigh 4 to 7 pounds. "Possum" is the everyday word. The rules all say "opossum," so search for that word in your own state's code.

It is not a rodent. California's rule lists "opossum" and "rodents" as separate entries. Each place puts it in a class, and the class decides the rule.

• Fur-bearer (or furbearer) means a wild mammal managed for its pelt, with trapping seasons and licenses. Texas, Virginia, Pennsylvania and Ontario all name the opossum a fur-bearer. Because the pelt has value, these rules guard the body even when they let you kill the animal.
• Nongame mammal is California's class. It means a native mammal that is not game, not a fur-bearer and not fully protected. California puts the opossum here, with coyotes, skunks and rodents.
• Take means more than kill. Texas defines it as "snaring, trapping, shooting, killing, or capturing by any means." So a rule that lets you take an opossum covers the cage trap too.
• Depredation is Texas's word for damage. It means "the loss of or damage to agricultural crops, livestock, poultry, wildlife, or personal property." Your deck, your shed and your pet all fall inside it.

The rules we read#

For a backyard, read the "When you may kill one" column first. The last column matters if you trap.

All seven allow it. California is the only one with no damage test at all.

Why the answers online disagree#

Two answers circulate. One says opossums are protected fur-bearers, so you need a license and an open season. The other says they are pests, so you may kill one any way you like. Each is half right.

The first is right about the label. Four of the seven places call the opossum a fur-bearer. But each lifts the season and the license once it damages your property. What the label still controls is the body. Texas forbids keeping it. Ontario wants notice if you do.

The second is right about the season and wrong about "any way." California allows an opossum all year, yet it bans poison. Texas allows "any means," yet its cruelty law covers an opossum once it is caught. A third answer, that killing one is illegal outright, comes mostly from news of arrests. The best-known case ended with a court saying the arrest was wrong.

The opossum that went to court#

The story ran on Police1 and Corrections1 in August 2012: "Man arrested for beating opossum can sue police." In Anaheim, California, in 2008, Lorenzo Oliver called police about an opossum attacking his bulldogs in the yard. Officers arrested him for trying to kill it, Police1 reported. He was jailed until his family raised a $20,000 bond. No criminal charges were filed.

The court's papers differ a little from the headline. The Ninth Circuit's memorandum says officers believed Oliver's minor son tried "to kill the opossum by hitting it with a shovel." Father and son were both arrested. A lower court threw out their lawsuit. On August 1, 2012, the appeals court revived it.

The majority's reasoning is the clearest statement of the law we found. California Penal Code 597(a) bans killing an animal "maliciously and intentionally." But Penal Code 599c protects "the right to destroy ... any animal known as dangerous to life, limb, or property." The hunting rules, the court said, "confirm that opossums are dangerous by explicitly permitting their killing." Some methods are banned, "but hitting them with a shovel is not among them." The police "had no evidence that plaintiffs did anything more than try to kill the opossum, which they were entitled to do."

The dissent is the part to remember. Judge Watford cited a California case, People v. Thomason (2000). It held that animals which "may be killed at will" are "still protected by section 597(a)'s prohibition on malicious and intentional wounding." Whether "bashing a mother opossum on the head three times with a metal shovel" crossed that line was "certainly debatable," the dissent said.

Two limits. The memorandum says it "is not precedent," so no court has to follow it. And it says the family could kill the opossum, not hurt it slowly. The majority itself set Thomason apart because that defendant "tortured the mice."

Does an opossum at a bird feeder count as damage?#

In California the question never comes up, since the rule needs no damage. Elsewhere, no agency we read names a bird feeder either way. So the wording of each rule is what you have. Texas covers "the loss of or damage to ... personal property." Virginia adds "or are otherwise causing a nuisance," the widest test here. New York needs the animal to be "injuring property," which reads as harm, not a meal. Pennsylvania and Ontario need property being damaged.

Virginia's agency points the other way on feeders. Its opossum page says: "Remove bird feeders when problem species have been seen around them." An agency that tells you to take the feeder down is not treating it as a reason to kill.

A den is a different matter. UC's experts say opossums den "under steps, porches, decks, garden tool sheds" and beneath houses. They add: "Pet and opossum confrontations are relatively common and the pets are often injured." A den under the porch or an injured dog fits these rules far better than an empty feeder. Not sure the raider is an opossum? My feeder empties overnight sorts the night visitors.

One opossum walked through the rules#

Take a house in a Texas suburb. Suppose an opossum has torn the screen off the crawl space and moved in under the house. The owner decides to trap it. Here is what the rules ask, in order.

1. What is it? A fur-bearing animal under Parks and Wildlife Code 71.001.
2. Is this depredation? A torn screen is "damage to ... personal property." So section 71.004 does not stop the landowner taking it.
3. A license? None. TPWD says landowners or their agents may take nuisance fur-bearers "without the need for a hunting or trapping license."
4. The trap closes. Now the cruelty law applies. Texas Penal Code 42.092 covers "a wild living creature previously captured." A free-roaming opossum was outside it. A caged one is inside it.
5. Then what? The same section exempts conduct that is "generally accepted and otherwise lawful" in "wildlife or depredation control." So a quick, accepted method is lawful. Cruelty to a caged animal is not.
6. Drive it to a park? Not without the department. TPWD allows capture and relocation only with its authorization and the property owner's consent.
7. Keep the pelt? No. Animals or pelts taken for this "may not be retained or possessed by anyone at any time."

Now change one fact. Move the same house to California. No damage test applies, since 14 CCR 472(a) allows an opossum "at any time of the year." But the trap rule is stricter. Under 14 CCR 465.5(g), a trapped nongame mammal "must be immediately killed or released." Poison is banned. UC experts add that "drowning is illegal in California" as a way to kill one. They also say "firearm discharge is not allowable in most residential areas." Their answer for a suburban lot is a professional, or a carbon dioxide chamber.

Texas: depredation, defined#

Parks and Wildlife Code 71.001 lists the opossum among the fur-bearing animals, with the raccoon, skunk and fox. Section 71.004 opens with the ban: "No person may take, sell, purchase, or possess a fur-bearing animal, pelt, or carcass in this state, except as provided by proclamation of the commission."

Then comes the exception: "This chapter does not prohibit a landowner or his agent from taking a fur-bearing animal causing depredation on that person's land." The limit follows. "No person may possess a fur-bearing animal taken for depredation purposes except as authorized by proclamation of the commission." Texas also makes moving or selling live foxes, coyotes and raccoons a Class C misdemeanor. That rule does not name the opossum. Regional feeding: Texas.

Virginia: the rule for fur-bearers#

Virginia's Code 29.1-100 says fur-bearing animals "includes beaver, bobcat, fisher, fox, mink, muskrat, opossum, otter, raccoon, skunk, and weasel." The same section defines nuisance species, and it leaves fur-bearers out. So an opossum is not a nuisance species in Virginia. The nuisance-species rule that covers the groundhog does not reach it.

Its own rule is Code 29.1-517, last amended in 2013. "A landowner may trap or shoot fur-bearing animals upon his own land during closed season when these animals are causing damage to crops or property, or are posing a threat to human health or safety, or are otherwise causing a nuisance." That last clause is the widest test on this page.

The Department of Wildlife Resources (DWR) page for skunks and opossums agrees. "No Kill Permit required from VDWR." Then it sends you elsewhere for the method: "You must contact the Commonwealth Attorney's office in your county/city for information regarding legal methods of animal removal." It adds that "local ordinances are usually more restrictive than state laws," and that "it is illegal in the State of Virginia to trap and relocate an animal to another area." Regional feeding: the Southeast.

California: any time, any number#

California's Fish and Game Code 4150 defines a nongame mammal as one "that is not a game mammal, exotic game mammal, fully protected mammal, or fur-bearing mammal." Its hunting rule, 14 CCR 472, starts by saying nongame mammals "may not be taken." Subsection (a) then lists the exceptions, opossum among them. Those "may be taken at any time of the year and in any number except as prohibited in Chapter 6."

Fish and Game Code 4152 adds a damage route. Nongame mammals "that are found to be injuring growing crops or other property may be taken at any time or in any manner." The owner or tenant may do it, or an agent carrying "written permission from the owner or tenant." People taking mammals under 4152 are "exempt from Section 3007, except when providing trapping services for a fee." Raw furs taken this way "shall not be sold." Traps "shall be inspected and all animals in the traps shall be removed at least once daily."

The limits are in 14 CCR 475. "Poison may not be used." Traps must follow 14 CCR 465.5, and firearm take must use nonlead ammunition. UC's pest note adds that state regulations "prohibit the relocation of wildlife without written permission from the department." It says to check for "municipal or county restrictions" first. Regional feeding: California.

New York: injuring property#

New York names the opossum in ECL 11-0523(7). "Whenever black, grey and fox squirrels, opossums or weasels are injuring property on occupied farms or lands or dwellings, they may be taken at any time in any manner." The right belongs to "the owners or occupants thereof or ... a person authorized in writing" by them. So a tenant counts, and a helper needs it in writing.

Subdivision 8: "No license or permit from the department is required for any taking authorized by this section." Subdivision 9 governs the body. An opossum taken "in the closed season or in a manner not permitted by section 11-0901 shall be immediately buried or cremated."

The test is injury to property. A nuisance alone is not enough. "Any manner" is the wildlife law speaking. The state cruelty law still applies, as the cruelty section below shows. Regional feeding: the Northeast.

Ohio: euthanize or release on site#

Ohio's nuisance wild animal rule, Admin. Code 1501:31-15-03, took effect January 1, 2024. Most animals need written permission from the Division of Wildlife before you kill them. Paragraph (E)(4) lists the ones that need none, and "Opossum" is item (h).

The rule is strict about a trapped one. Paragraph (E)(3): "It shall be unlawful to fail to euthanize, or release on site, any nuisance raccoon, skunk, beaver, coyote, red fox, or opossum." So it goes free at the house, or it is put down. It does not go in the car. Four more rules apply:

• Traps must be checked, and animals removed, "once every calendar day" (C)(1).
• Anyone not licensed may not hold it "longer than twenty-four hours from the time of capture" (A)(5).
• Setting a trap on a neighbor's land needs the owner's permission first (A)(4).
• No dogs: you may not take an opossum "with the use of dogs outside of a structure during the closed season" (E)(8).

Regional feeding: the Midwest.

Pennsylvania: a farm rule and a property rule#

Pennsylvania lists the opossum among its "furbearers" in 34 Pa.C.S. 102. It has two damage rules, and only one is for homeowners.

The statute, 34 Pa.C.S. 2121, lets a person kill wildlife seen destroying "cultivated crops, fruit trees, vegetables, livestock, poultry or beehives." But subsection (c) limits "person" to someone farming "as a primary means of gaining a livelihood," plus family and staff. A backyard garden does not qualify. We read it on Onecle, in its 2007 text.

Everyone else uses 58 Pa. Code 141.3. "Protection is removed from wildlife, except migratory birds, big game and threatened or endangered species, when personal property, other than an agricultural crop, is being destroyed or damaged." Only "the owner or person in charge" may act, "in a humane and lawful manner." The animal "may not be retained alive, sold or given away." It "shall be turned over to a Commission representative as required in section 2125 of the act." A live one "may be relocated to a natural setting unless otherwise restricted or prohibited."

Subsection (c) also lifts protection from an animal that is plainly sick and "poses a threat to human safety, farm animals or pets." For where a gun may be fired, see the groundhog page.

Ontario: a furbearer, and the carcass rule#

Ontario lists "Opossum, Didelphis virginiana" in Schedule 1 of O. Reg. 669/98, the furbearing mammals. It is not among the few animals with their own rules, so the general rule decides.

That rule is section 31 of the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act. If you believe "on reasonable grounds that wildlife is damaging or is about to damage" your property, you may, "on the person's land," harass it or "capture or kill the wildlife." Subsection (4): you may not take "more wildlife than is necessary to protect the property." Subsection (5): you "shall not cause it unnecessary suffering." Subsection (6) switches off section 6, the rule that limits furbearer trapping to licence holders.

The body is where a furbearer differs. O. Reg. 666/98 s. 2(2) says you "shall not keep possession of the carcass" unless, "promptly upon acquiring the carcass," you give notice to the Ministry. The usual exemption for lawful kills leaves out a furbearing mammal "lawfully killed while protecting property under section 31." That notice rule was last reworded by O. Reg. 164/26 in 2026.

The province's guidance page, updated December 15, 2025, adds the practical rules. Release a live one "within 1 kilometre of where they were captured" and "within 24 hours." Killing is "a last resort." Feeder by-laws in Canadian towns are on are bird feeders illegal in Canada.

Cruelty laws: how you kill it#

Every wildlife rule above says whether you may take an opossum. The cruelty law decides whether the way you did it was a crime. These are the cruelty statutes we read.

California's pair is the one the Anaheim court read. Section 597(a) opens with "Except as provided in ... Section 599c." So a lawful kill of a dangerous animal is outside it. Torture is not, under Thomason.

Texas draws the sharpest line. Its Penal Code defines "animal" to include "a wild living creature previously captured." It "does not include an uncaptured wild living creature." So the law does not reach a free opossum in the yard. It does reach one in a cage trap. Subsection (f) then exempts conduct that is "generally accepted and otherwise lawful" in "wildlife or depredation control." Torture, or killing "in a cruel manner," is a third-degree felony.

New York's law is the widest. "Animal" means "every living creature except a human being," and the offense turns on the word "unjustifiably." Virginia's section "shall not prohibit authorized wildlife management activities or hunting, fishing or trapping as regulated" elsewhere in its Code. Ohio bans "needlessly" killing an animal and states no wildlife exception. Canada's Criminal Code makes it an offense to wilfully cause "unnecessary pain, suffering or injury to an animal or a bird." On indictment the term is up to five years.

The pattern is the same everywhere. The right to kill an opossum is real. No place gives a right to make it suffer. In the squirrel cases we read, the charge that landed was deadly conduct or cruelty, not a wildlife offense; see the squirrel page. Town gun rules are under municipal and county ordinances.

Moving it instead#

Trapping an opossum and driving it away is often illegal, not gentle. Virginia calls relocation illegal, and Ohio requires release on site. California and Texas need the state's permission. Only Pennsylvania ("a natural setting") and Ontario (1 km, 24 hours) set out a move you may make yourself. Other animals' rules are on squirrel relocation laws.

A cage trap on the ground also catches cats and ground-feeding birds. UC warns that cat food bait "often attracts cats as well." It suggests raw eggs, or jam or peanut butter on bread. Check the trap daily, as Ohio and California require. The same problem comes up with house sparrow traps. Never use a glue board; see are glue traps illegal.

What works without killing anything#

Killing one opossum leaves the food and the den site, and the next one finds both. UC's pest note gives the fixes. Remove pet food "by nightfall." Use garbage cans with "tight-fitting lids."

For a deck or shed, UC says to close the gap with 1/4-inch mesh hardware cloth, buried up to 6 inches. Make sure the animal has left before you close it. For a garden, use a poultry-wire fence 4 feet high with the top 12 to 18 inches bent outward and left loose, so it folds under a climber. Mothballs and ammonia used as repellents are "not legal," UC adds.

For the feeder, Virginia's DWR says to "remove bird feeders when problem species have been seen around them," and Ontario lists "bird feed/seed" as an attractant. You need not give up feeding. Bring the feeder in at dusk and fit a baffle sized for a raccoon, which stops a climbing opossum too. Store seed in a metal can, as on storing bird seed. Clear the spill below; seed mess and dead grass has the routine.

One sign is easy to misread. When threatened, an opossum may play dead: it "rolls over on its side, becomes limp, shuts its eyes." UC calls this "playing possum." An opossum lying still is not proof it is hurt or dead, and it is not proof of rabies either. Virginia's DWR says "just seeing them during the day is not a sign of rabies." Call your local health department if one shows "stumbling, foaming at the mouth or aggression."

Where this page stops applying#

This page reads six states and one province, not fifty states and thirteen provinces and territories. Other places differ, so search your wildlife agency's site for "opossum" and "nuisance" before you act. We read Pennsylvania's damage statute on Onecle in its 2007 text and did not read its cruelty law. We did not read any county's or town's gun rules. We did not read California's hunting license rule, Fish and Game Code 3007, so we do not say whether taking an opossum with no damage needs a license there. The Anaheim memorandum binds no court, and we found no ruling on opossums under any other state's cruelty law. Nothing here says which killing methods are humane; Virginia sends that question to your Commonwealth's Attorney. Federal and state rules on poisons and on trapping licenses for paid help are not covered. This is a reading of statutes, regulations and agency guidance, not legal advice.