Meet Pogo, the newest member of the Wildlife Center’s education team!
In April 2013, this young Virginia Opossum was found with his dead mother; the opossum’s rescuers raised him and kept him as a pet. This spring, the opossum’s rescuers split up, and passed the year-old opossum off to some friends. The opossum changed hands while neighbors figured out who could take him – fortunately, someone contacted the Wildlife Center. It is illegal to have wild animals as pets in Virginia; those interested in rehabilitating and releasing animals need to have a permit from the Department of Game and Inland Fisheries.
The Wildlife Center admitted the male opossum as patient number #14-0471 in May 2014. The veterinary team gave the opossum a full physical examination to check for health problems and 
found that the opossum does have mild metabolic bone disease due to poor nutrition while in captivity. Otherwise, the opossum was in good health – but was very friendly and unafraid of humans. Due to his behavior, the opossum is not a candidate for release, but the outreach staff began working with the opossum to assess his behavior as an education opossum. By early June, the outreach staff knew that this opossum would be a great new member of the team!
The final step in the process of training an education animal is to give it a name – to officially welcome the animal as a member of the outreach team. “Pogo” was a name suggested by long-time Wildlife Center volunteer Bob Post. Bob proposed the name “Pogo” in honor of the central character in a daily comic strip that was created in the 1940’s. In the comic, “Pogo Possum” is described as an “amiable, humble, philosophical, personable, everyman opossum” with enough sense “to avoid trouble”. Bob noted that Pogo Possum played a central role in the very first Earth Day in 1970 – comic strip creator Walt Kelly drew a poster of Pogo, holding a litter pick-up stick and a burlap bag. In the poster, Pogo appears to be getting ready to start picking up the garbage that litters the swamp where he lives. The comic was captioned, “We have met the enemy and he is us”. This now well-known quote went on to be used in additional Earth Day comics – it highlights a key concept of environmental stewardship.
This Pogo the opossum will play a key role in the Center’s outreach education programs – Pogo will travel the state of Virginia and will help teach tens of thousands of people about the importance of being environmental stewards. Opossums are central to the Center’s outreach program, “Critters Don’t Need Litter” – so Pogo seems like a very fitting name! Thanks, Bob, for the great suggestion.