On a warm Friday evening, three trucks swarmed in to block the driveways of a home in McCalla, Alabama, just outside Birmingham. Four game wardens from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’s Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division raced toward the house, where they presented a search warrant for a 4-year-old opossum.
It turns out the owner of the house, Matt Mathews, had been taking care of the offending opossum, named Donovan, ever since an acquaintance had picked up the abandoned baby animal, who she noticed couldn’t walk, on the side of the road.
In addition to his full-time job as a photographer, Mathews is also an avid animal lover with many horses, cats, and dogs. The acquaintance called him for advice on what to do with the animal. Mathews has been caring for Donovan ever since.
And Donovan needs lots of care. Not only does he have a metabolic bone disease that makes it hard for him to walk, but Donovan also needs help using the bathroom and has terrible eyesight.
The Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division has not responded to press inquiries about why it took Donovan or what it has done with him. Mathews, however, readily admitted on his 56,000-follower Instagram account that it was illegal in Alabama to rehabilitate opossums without a license.
But Mathews said that getting a rehabilitation license is very time-consuming, and he wasn’t doing anyone any harm. Because of their low body temperature, opossums very rarely get rabies. “Why did you need four wardens?” Mathews complained to AL.com. “Why did you need three vehicles to surround my house when I have one possum who is not doing anything wrong?”
If otherwise law-abiding Alabamians can’t care for rabies-free opossums in the privacy of their own homes without a license, are we even a free country anymore?
