A crafty possum caused a stir at Hobart Airport today after sneaking into the terminal’s gift shop and positioning itself among plush toy possums on a souvenir shelf.
The curious marsupial made its way into the store during ongoing terminal upgrade works, blending in seamlessly with its stuffed counterparts.
“He actually ended up on one of the souvenir shelves amongst a few plush lookalikes, so with his little family of plush possums,” an airport spokesperson told Pulse.
“The possum wasn’t stressed at all. It was actually just pretty cruisy really.”
Staff at the gift shop spotted the real possum among the toys and alerted operations teams, who safely escorted the animal back to the wild.
The spokesperson believes the possum likely entered through construction areas as the airport undergoes major renovations.
“We’re obviously doing a lot of work at the moment to upgrade the terminal, so he probably made his way through from one of the worksites,” she said.
The incident didn’t cause any disruptions for travellers.
“Not too much of a scene, thankfully, no delayed flights,” they said.
“A little bit of interest for sure, but yeah, every day in Tassie is different, isn’t it?”
Wildlife encounters aren’t unusual at Hobart Airport with other incidents including snakes on the runway which the airport showed on their social media.
The terminal upgrades are now about one-third complete, with new stores opening and major internal renovations beginning this month.
Construction work has predominantly occurred outside the terminal until now.
“People have started to really get a first glimpse of what the new terminal will look like and so far it’s been good feedback,” the spokesperson said.
