Early in 2006 I picked up a sub adult male Brushtail Possum, that had been raised by a member of the public. I decided to call him Stan.

He was a very badly imprinted possum, meaning that he was far too comfortable around all humans and this cold detrimantally compromise his release prospects.

I housed him in an aviary on my property for 6 months hopefully to get him used to the surroundings and any local Brushtail Possums in the area. After several weeks in care I tried to soft release him from the aviary.

Not long after release he ventured up to my house even though he had never been to the house before. He was crying and pacing up and down - he was terrified.

My husband went inside to get a pillow case to catch him and put him back into the aviary. We left him there for a while longer thinking we'll try and release him again soon.

I had a young female coming onto my veranda at night. Amazingly, she used to leave her back baby on the verandah would then go off into the bush whilst joey was running around. She may have been one of the possums that I had raised and released over the years to do something like that?

I could hear Stan jumping around in his aviary a lot louder each night. Our thoughts were that he wants to go this time. Before releasing him this time we thought we'd get more prepared . Five weeks ago we put a new possum box in with Stan in his aviary to get his smell on it. My husband nailed the box to our house with a stick that Stan could climb up and down and have access to the box if needed. We opened the door of the aviary on dusk and sure enough, when Stan came out of the aviary he came straight back up to the house.

He climbed up on our bedroom door which is a sliding door with veranda access.... we ignored him.

We also watched him mark his territory by rubbing his scent all around our veranda and urinating everywhere, we didn't mind as he was going to be free this time.

We listened, no growls or noises.

I don't know whether he left the veranda that night as he was asleep in his box on the veranda the next morning.

Each night we would leave a small amount of fruit out there just in case he didn't go off the veranda. He was on a diet of leaf as he was fed a variety of eucalypts; wattles; casuarinas; and just what was around this area and a small amount of fruit (which we don't raise Brushtails on anymore).

After a few days it was quiet outside and we'd go out with a torch and Stan had left the veranda, but he'd always come back to sleep in his box.

For the past week he hasn't come back to his box to sleep, but comes up onto the veranda with the young female with her back baby. The noise everynight of them running back and forth sounds like they are having relays out there! Who says Brushtail Possums are solitary?

There has been no fighting just a couple of growls from the female when I go outside to check Stan, I am sure the growls are for me not Stan!

Every now and then Stan baby sits the back baby while mum possum goes off and sits in the tree's. He hangs out with both mum possum and back baby regularly and some nights they hang under our house which is built up on poles.

There are plenty of hollows down the bottom of our property and there are boxes still hanging up tree's. We back onto a State Forest so there is plenty of bush around. So far Stan seems to hang around but I know one day he might not come on the veranda and I'll probably worry. I'll keep you updated with Stan The Brushtail Possum.

It's just a great success story…… so far.