A real possum appears among plush toy animals in Australian airport gift shop
Advertisement
Read this article for free:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Digital Subscription
One year of digital access for only $205*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*First annual payment billed as $205.00 + GST for one year. This annual subscription will automatically renew at $233.00 + GST every 52 weeks (10% off the regular annual price of $259.35). Offer available to new and qualified returning subscribers only. Cancel any time.
To continue reading, please subscribe:
Add Free Press access to your Brandon Sun subscription for only an additional
$1 for the first 4 weeks*
- Enjoy unlimited reading on winnipegfreepress.com
- Read the E-Edition, our digital replica newspaper
- Access News Break, our award-winning app
- Play interactive puzzles
*Your next Brandon Sun subscription payment will increase by $1.00 and you will be charged $17.95 plus GST for four weeks. After four weeks, your payment will increase to $24.95 plus GST every four weeks.
Read unlimited articles for free today:
or
Already have an account? Log in here »
Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/03/2026 (203 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — On shelves crammed with cuddly toy native animals in an Australian airport gift shop, one fluffy possum stood out: Its big brown eyes were moving.
A browsing passenger first spotted a living Australian brushtail possum peering out from among the kangaroos on the display shelf at the departure terminal shop at Hobart Airport in Tasmania state on Wednesday, an airport retail manager Liam Bloomfield said on Thursday.
Above the possum were bilbies, marsupials with rabbit-like long ears, and dingoes, Australia’s native dog. Beside the possum in the kangaroo section were Tasmanian devils, a growling carnivore that inspired the feisty Warner Bros. cartoon character Taz.
“A passenger reported it to …. one of the staff members on shift who couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing,” Bloomfield said. “She then called the (airport) management and said we’ve got a possum in the store.”
A staff member took a video of the possum with her phone before the animal grew wary of the growing attention and left the shop.
Airport staff were able to remove the possum from the airport unharmed.
Bloomfield didn’t know what attracted the possum to the toy shelf.
“I’m imagining it saw some of the plush animals that were for sale on the shelf and it decided to make its home with those. It wanted to blend in,” Bloomfield joked.
How the possum got into the store and how long it spent there are also unknown.
It was unlikely to have been placed there as a prank. Someone would have had to put the possum through X-ray screening to get it into the secure departure terminal area.