Photographer, social media star Matt Mathews: Opossum taken by the state was his 'baby'
Maybe he should have played possum.
Matt Mathews, one of the most sought-after boudoir photographers in the Southeast and a multiple time world-qualifying barrel racer, is also a fierce animal advocate and has spent years rehabilitating one of his favorite creatures: opossums.
Mathews has a huge fan base on social media, with over 56,000 followers on Instagram alone. Between showing his photography and making funny videos online, Mathews shows off his animals-- horses, dogs and cats-- and his “baby”, an opossum named Donovan.
Now, after Donovan was taken by the state on Friday, Mathews doesn’t even know if he’s alive.
https://www.al.com/news/birmingham/2021/09/photographer-social-media-star-matt-mathews-opossum-taken-by-the-state-was-his-baby.html
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Wtf?
It was Friday. Mathews was at work, getting ready for a shoot at his downtown Birmingham studio, when he got a call from his husband. His husband said there were four game wardens from the Alabama Department of Conservation and Natural Resources’ Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division, three vehicles blocking the driveways, and they had a search warrant. They were coming for the four-year-old opossum.
“Why did you need four wardens? Why did you need three vehicles to surround my house, when I have one possum who is not doing anything wrong?” Mathews said.
A representative for the Alabama Wildlife and Freshwater Fisheries Division did not respond to AL.com’s request for comment by the time of publication.
“What about the people who are poaching and killing endangered animals? What about people who are fighting dogs and chickens? What about the people who are starving horses?” he said.
Well, it's g.d. Alabam, that's why. And these guys are gay. Hell, the great Ken Burns' PBS series on Muhammad Ali is not being broadcast in AL....or in any Tennessee location I checked. And folks wonder why this southern old gal bashes the South? It's because these states still have their heads up their asses!
But Jesus saves them from Covid, don't you know.
That poor baby did nothing to deserve death, and all Matt did was love and help a creature that would have died without him.
I did that with a fledgling scrub jay. She had been kicked out of the nest, I assume, because her feet were deformed. My hubby found her in our backyard. We raised her and kept her in a very BIG cage because she was unreleasable. She was a happy birdie who learned to perch in her own way, loved to eat blackberries (and slugs! yuck), and even danced when she liked the music we played for her. She lived with us for almost 20 years, longer than they live on average in the wild. We hurt no one.
I always knew, though, that if anyone ever reported us, Fish & Game would take her. And they would have euthanized her. The law is fucking evil about this!
