The animal kingdom is a wild and ruthless place. That is especially true if one animal encroaches on the home territory of another. A fight is sure to break out and, more often than not, the consequences for the weaker animal deal a major blow to that creature’s chance to survive in the wilderness.
This time, the animals involved are two that you likely hadn’t considered as a species that could ever find themselves in close enough proximity to have a fight. At an Australian zoo in Perth, an orangutan was filmed throwing a possum out of its enclosure. And yes, I literally mean throwing.
The orangutan launched the tiny possum through the air in the now-viral video in which you can see the orangutan lean out of its high tower in the enclosure and swing its arm violently like a quarterback throwing a Hail Mary.
Next, a small figure is seen twirling through the air as it flies at great velocity to the ground far outside the expanses of the orangutan’s home. In one last act of dominance, the orangutan reappears to peer down from his tall perch to see where the possum landed, presumably to make sure that he threw the animal hard enough and wouldn’t have to deal with the pest ever again.
google alerts for "orangutan yeets possum out of his home" finally paying off pic.twitter.com/t1WuAhsk8z
— Mike Scollins (@mikescollins) September 12, 2023
Guests at the zoo can be heard in the background exclaiming and sounding half-amazed and half-horrified at the act of brutal nature taking place before them. many folks online wondered about the outcome. Was the possum alive?
A Perth Zoo representative spoke to Yahoo News Australia to explain the zoo’s stance on the high-profile fight that took place under their watch. They said, “Although we have a robust pest control program, just as in other urban Perth areas, it is impossible to eradicate all pests completely.”
The spokesperson continued, explaining, “The orangutan habitat is an outside environment, and possums, who also live at height, just like the orangutans, have been known to inhabit the above ground territories. Whilst every effort is made to catch and remove them, the sheer height provides some challenges and sometimes the orangutans evict the odd possum themselves.”
Lastly, the question that everyone was waiting for was answered. Did the rodent survive? “I would presume it did not survive the fall. Obviously the loss of any living creature saddens us, but also nature playing out,” the spokesperson said.
The original video was posted to Reddit four days ago, and commenters flooded the video to crack their own jokes about the bizarre occurrence. One commenter said, “I’m currently working at evicting two possums from living in my soffetts. Do you know if that orangutan does house calls?”
Another commenter noted, “I know tenants are having a hard time paying the rent … but this eviction is a bit rough.”
When all is said and done, maybe some guests of the Perth Zoo learned a valuable lesson. Nature is not a kind and gentle place. The strong survive, and the weak do their best to avoid them. This may not be the ideal way to teach the lesson, but it certainly gets the point across.
The featured image is a screenshot from an embedded Tweet.
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