Earlier this week, a furry patient arrived to the veterinary clinic at Nebraska Wildlife Rehab in need of some medical attention.
It was a wild opossum who’d been picked up by animal control. She’d been behaving somewhat strangely — but she wasn’t exactly injured.
A handwritten note accompanied the opossum, explaining the nature of her circumstance:
The cause of the opossum’s woes? Too much chocolate cake.
“Our reaction, of course, was laughter at the note,” Laura Stastny, executive director of Nebraska Wildlife Rehab, told The Dodo.
A homeowner had bought the cake for a party, placing it outside briefly as there was no room in her fridge. But the opossum had gotten to it first, enjoying it all to herself.
Preferably, such overindulgence of sweets happens behind closed doors, away from judging eyes. But the reality of this opossum’s gluttonous gorging was now laid bare for all to see.
Her shame was almost palpable.
“[She] is definitely a little cranky about our strict ‘zero chocolate’ policy!” the clinic wrote.
Despite their initial amusement, caretakers at the clinic quickly got to work.
“We assume that chocolate would be toxic to opossums and other wildlife, but we don’t know of any published studies confirming that,” Stastny said. “For that reason, the opossum was given activated charcoal and fluids on intake, and we did a full workup, including blood pressure, X-rays and bloodwork.”
Fortunately, the opossum’s cake binge doesn’t appear to have led to any lasting ill effects. But she’s not out of the woods entirely.
Bloodwork revealed that the opossum was actually suffering from lead toxicity unrelated to the cake she ate — and it might’ve proved fatal had it not been discovered.
“This is a common issue in wildlife, with different causes for different species,” Stastny said.
Now, the opossum is being treated for the toxicity issue. And thankfully, she’s doing well.
In some ways, stuffing her face with cake may actually have saved her life.
“We hope she’ll be ready for release later in March,” Stastny said. “Perhaps she was lucky she stole that cake (I’m sure it was tasty) because she was caught and is now getting the critical treatment she needs for lead.”
Show your support for this cake bandit and her caregivers at Nebraska Wildlife Rehab by purchasing a T-shirt created in her honor.