Around my place in CT, the problem with the noturnal beasties is that they're seemingly adapting to daylight. I see a lot more opossums, skunks and raccoons out and about in the day. Back when I was younger, it was a rare sight.
Distemper is by far the bigger issue (at least that's what the wildlife officials say) with them and one acting oddly is likely to have that.
But according to the CT DOAG:
During the month of April 1991 the first two cases of rabid raccoon were confirmed in the town of Ridgefield. Since that time every city and town in Connecticut has had confirmed cases of rabies. Connecticut has a total of 6,069 confirmed cases of rabies as of June 22, 2008.
The following is a breakdown of the type and number of confirmed rabid animals:
4593 raccoons
1177 skunks
114 cats
71 foxes
60 woodchucks
15 cows
9 dogs
8 horses
3 deer
3 bobcats
3 sheep
1 oppossum
1 otter
1 ferretSo if that's any indication, your opossum was "probably" not rabid. It seems the other posters are right. They must not get it too often. That's an interesting factiod- here I always assumed the worst. Still, I shoot a lot of opossums (opossumi ?
) and alway shoot the ones around in the daytime.
