Are opossums native to Alaska, you ask? No they’re not, and actually, the Virginia opossum is considered invasive across the entire PNW.
So you’ll understand the hubbub when wildlife officials in The Last Frontier discovered that an opossum had stowed away on a cargo ship out of Washington state.
The gal’s name was Grubby, see, and she slipped right past port security in Homer, AK, spending several months on the lam and giving birth to five babies (aka joeys). Eventually, the long arm of the law caught up to our marsupial maven, and the little gang was transported to Anchorage’s zoo.
About a month ago, one of Grubby’s outlaw offspring, adorably named Homer, undertook another odyssey to fly to the Oregon Zoo, where he now enjoys snuggling in his hammock behind the scenes. Keepers hope he will soon greet visitors as an ambassador for his often misunderstood species.