Skip to content
Grow In Backyard
Squirrels & Wildlife

Can Opossums Jump? Barely — They Climb Instead

Opossums are poor jumpers and excellent climbers with a prehensile tail and opposable rear thumbs. What that means for fencing them out.

By Salma 2 min read Save to Pinterest — opens Pinterest in a new tab
An opossum hanging by its prehensile tail from a bare branch at night
Photo: topochart_app, Pixabay Content License, via Pixabay
On this page

An opossum barely jumps at all. It climbs — with hind thumbs and a prehensile tail — which changes entirely what a barrier has to do.

Climb or jump

actionopossum
Vertical jumpnegligible
Horizontal leap across a gapno
Climbing a treeyes, easily
Climbing chain linkyes
Climbing rough brick or timberyes
Climbing smooth sheet with no railno
Digging its own burrowrarely

Where they actually get in

accessfix
Under a deck or porchburied steel mesh skirt
Under a shedsame, plus a check for occupants
Crawl space ventmetal vent cover
Over a rough fencesmooth face or outward lip
Via a bin or woodpile against a fencemove the bin

Low body temperature, low rabies risk

Opossums run cooler than placental mammals of similar size, and rabies virus replicates poorly at that temperature. Rabies in opossums is genuinely rare — the hissing, drooling, open-mouthed display that alarms people is a bluff, not a symptom.

Deciding whether to exclude at all

  • Eating ticks, slugs, beetles and rodents is a real benefit in most gardens
  • Structural damage is rare; they occupy spaces rather than making them
  • The genuine reasons: a den under a structure, bins raided, conflict with a dog
  • All three are secured, not trapped — mesh, bin straps, bringing pet food in at night
  • Relocation is often illegal and usually fatal to the animal

Check before you seal

Spring and summer dens hold young on the mother’s back. Loosely block the entrance with crumpled paper and watch for three nights: if it is pushed out, something is living there.

Common questions

Can opossums jump?

Hardly at all. An opossum is a slow, heavy-bodied marsupial with short legs and no running leap; it can scramble up onto something low but it does not jump gaps or launch itself upward the way a cat or a squirrel does. That is unusual among garden mammals and it is the single most useful fact for keeping one out of something.

So how do they get everywhere?

By climbing, which they do extremely well. An opossum has an opposable thumb on each hind foot and a prehensile tail it uses as a fifth limb, and it will climb a tree, a fence post, a downpipe, a trellis, a wire fence or a brick wall with a rough face. A smooth vertical surface with nothing to grip is what stops it, not height.

Can an opossum climb a fence?

Almost any ordinary fence, yes. Chain link is effectively a ladder, timber board fences are climbed at the posts and rails, and wire mesh is gripped directly. The exception is a smooth, tall fence with no horizontal rail on the outside face — and even that is beaten if a bin, a branch or a woodpile stands against it.

What actually keeps them out?

Remove the grip, not the height. A smooth outward-facing fence panel, a loose top roller or a 30 cm outward-angled lip at the top will stop an animal that cannot jump the last section. Beyond that, removing what brings them in — pet food left out, fallen fruit, unsecured bins, open crawl spaces and decks — does far more than any barrier.

Can they get under things instead?

Readily, and that is the more common complaint. Opossums do not dig burrows of their own but occupy whatever is available: the space under a deck, a shed, a porch or a crawl space, often a burrow another animal abandoned. Screening those gaps with buried steel mesh is the fix, and the check for occupants before sealing applies as with any animal.

Are opossums worth excluding at all?

Often not. They eat ticks, slugs, snails, beetles, rodents and carrion, rarely damage structures, almost never dig, and have an unusually low incidence of rabies because of their low body temperature. The real reasons to exclude are a den under a structure, conflict with pets, and bins being raided — all of which are solved by securing things rather than removing the animal.

Backyard Weekly

Know what to plant, week by week

Join the weekly email for seasonal jobs, fixes for what is going wrong, and gear worth buying.

Not ready to subscribe? The planting calendar is free and needs no email.

By subscribing you agree to our privacy policy. Grow In Backyard will never sell your address.

Keep reading