Drop That Possum!

Or, to be factually accurate, don't drop that possum.

I refer of course, to the possum of Brasstown, North Carolina, which is the star of the New Year's Eve festivities annually at Brasstown. A PETA-loving judge has ordered a halt to the annual "possum drop" in which a caged possum is lowered at midnight, signalling the New Year in Brasstown:

Senior Administrative Law Judge Fred Morrison ruled Tuesday that Brasstown store owner Clay Logan did not qualify for a permit to hold animals captive, and that the state Wildlife Resources Commission had no authority to issue a special permit.

“WRC should therefore have instructed Logan to immediately release the opossum into the wild where the opossum had been captured, or kill it,” Morrison wrote in his order.

Known as the possum capital of the South, Brasstown has rung in the new year by suspending an opossum above a stage and dropping it at the stroke of midnight while fireworks boom in the background.

I've suggested before that it would be easy enough to get a taxidermied possum to drop instead, and clothe it in various amusing outfits as a way to start a new tradition. a skilled taxidermist could pose a possum in any one of a variety of humorous postures for the public to enjoy.