No, you cannot have a possum as a pet in Texas. The Virginia opossum, the animal Texans see in their yards and garbage cans, is classified as a fur-bearing animal under state law, and private individuals are barred from keeping one. The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) issues only two permits that allow possession of a live opossum, and neither one authorizes pet ownership. A different species, the Brazilian short-tailed opossum, is legal and is the closest thing to a lawful alternative.
The Law That Makes It Illegal
Texas groups opossums with beavers, otters, raccoons, mink, and skunks under the label “fur-bearing animal.”1Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. Definitions: Fur-bearing Animals That single classification drives every rule about whether you can keep, trap, or sell one.
The statute prohibits taking, selling, purchasing, or possessing a fur-bearing animal except under conditions TPWD sets out.2State of Texas. Texas Parks and Wildlife Code 71-004 – Prohibited Acts A separate administrative rule reinforces the point: no person other than the holder of a fur-bearing animal propagation license may possess a live fur-bearing animal at any time.3Legal Information Institute. 31 Texas Administrative Code 65-376 – Possession of Live Fur-bearing Animals Trapping one in your yard and raising it is illegal. Buying one from someone else is illegal. Rescuing an orphan and keeping it is illegal.
One narrow exception often gets misread as a loophole. Landowners and their agents may kill a fur-bearing animal that is damaging crops, livestock, or property, at any time, without a hunting or trapping license. But the animal cannot be kept. Only licensed trappers during an open season may retain a fur-bearing animal taken for depredation.4Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. Fur-bearing Animal Regulations The depredation rule is about pest control, not a route to a pet.
Penalties If You Keep One Anyway
Unauthorized possession of a wild opossum is a Class C Parks and Wildlife Code misdemeanor, a separate classification from a Class C misdemeanor under the Texas Penal Code. The fine runs from $25 to $500.5State of Texas. Texas Parks and Wildlife Code Chapter 12 – Powers and Duties Concerning Wildlife – Section: Punishments A game warden can also seize the animal on the spot.
The state fine looks minor, but the exposure grows fast if the animal crosses state lines. The federal Lacey Act makes it unlawful to transport, sell, or acquire wildlife taken in violation of state law through interstate commerce. Criminal penalties can reach $20,000 in fines and up to five years in prison for knowing violations involving wildlife worth more than $350. Lower-level violations can still bring up to $10,000 in civil penalties per incident, and the animal is subject to federal forfeiture. A backyard project becomes a federal wildlife offense the moment it moves across a border.
The Two Permits That Allow Possession
TPWD issues two permits that authorize holding a live opossum. Neither one is a pet permit, and neither one is a workaround.
Fur-Bearing Animal Propagation Permit
This permit lets a person take and hold live fur-bearing animals for breeding and sale. A fur-bearing animal propagator, by statute, possesses the animal for the purpose of propagation or sale.6Justia. Texas Parks and Wildlife Code Chapter 71 – Licenses and Regulations The permit is for commercial operations. Even with it, you cannot take an animal from the wild outside the designated commercial harvest season.3Legal Information Institute. 31 Texas Administrative Code 65-376 – Possession of Live Fur-bearing Animals
Wildlife Rehabilitation Permit
A rehabilitation permit authorizes caring for sick, injured, or orphaned native wildlife with the goal of releasing the animal back into the wild. The animal cannot be sold, bartered, or exchanged. Except for approved educational purposes, only the permittee, subpermittees, volunteers, and licensed veterinary staff may have contact with the wildlife.7Legal Information Institute. 31 Texas Administrative Code 69-44 – General Provisions
Getting the permit is not casual. The application requires a perfect score of 100 on a state-administered exam and a letter of recommendation from a licensed veterinarian or an experienced rehabilitator who has known the applicant for at least two years.8Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. Wildlife Rehabilitation Permit Application Animals that cannot be released must be euthanized unless the rehabilitator has at least three years of experience and receives specific TPWD permission to retain them.7Legal Information Institute. 31 Texas Administrative Code 69-44 – General Provisions Rehabilitation is temporary medical care, not adoption.
If You Find an Injured Opossum
Leave the animal where it is and contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitator. TPWD maintains a directory of permitted rehabilitators by county; check your county and neighboring ones for someone who handles mammals.9Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. Wildlife Rehabbers in Texas If you reach voicemail, leave a detailed message with the animal’s location and your contact information.
Do not feed, hydrate, or house the animal yourself. Good intentions do not create a legal defense, and improvised care usually harms the opossum. If it is in immediate danger from traffic or a predator, moving it to a nearby sheltered spot using thick gloves or a towel is the outer limit of what you should do.
Why It’s a Bad Idea Even If It Were Legal
The Virginia opossum is a poor domestic animal on its own terms. It’s nocturnal, solitary, and naturally nomadic. A house is the opposite of what its instincts want.
The biggest medical problem in captivity is metabolic bone disease. Opossums need a calcium-to-phosphorus ratio of roughly 1.5-to-1, and no commercial food is formulated for them. Diets built around fruit, meat without bones, or generic pet food throw off that ratio and cause the body to pull calcium from the skeleton. Early signs are loss of grip strength, tremors, and reduced activity. As the disease progresses, legs bow, bones fracture easily, and the animal may lose the ability to walk or eat. It is the leading killer of captive opossums and is almost always caused by well-meaning owners feeding the wrong food.
Lifespan is short either way. Wild opossums live about a year and a half to two years. Even with professional care, they rarely exceed four.
There are also health risks to the humans and animals around them. Opossums can carry Rickettsia species (linked to Rocky Mountain spotted fever and murine typhus through ticks and fleas), Trypanosoma cruzi (the agent behind Chagas disease), and gastrointestinal parasites like Cryptosporidium and Giardia that spread through feces. Horse owners face a specific concern: opossums are the definitive host for Sarcocystis neurona, the parasite that causes equine protozoal myeloencephalitis. Horses become infected by eating feed or drinking water contaminated with opossum feces. Fewer than one percent of exposed horses develop the disease, but when it hits, it attacks the central nervous system.
The Legal Alternative: Brazilian Short-Tailed Opossum
If the appeal is having a marsupial, the Brazilian short-tailed opossum (Monodelphis domestica) is likely the best legal option in Texas. It’s a South American species, not native to Texas, and not classified as a fur-bearing animal. Texas regulations on non-indigenous animals impose no state bag limits, possession limits, or closed seasons on private property.10Texas Parks & Wildlife Department. Nongame, Exotic, Endangered, Threatened and Protected Species Check your city or county for local exotic animal ordinances before buying one, because state permissiveness does not override local rules.
Short-tailed opossums are a different animal from the one in your yard. Adults are four to six inches long, about hamster-sized, and live four to six years with proper care. They’re nocturnal, solitary, and omnivorous, with a diet built on high-quality cat food supplemented by insects, cooked eggs, and small amounts of fruit and vegetables. They can become tame with regular handling but are not cuddly in the way a dog or cat is. They are also not a substitute for the Virginia opossum, which is a fundamentally different species with fundamentally different behavior. What they offer is the legal experience of keeping a marsupial in Texas, which the backyard opossum does not.