{"id":337159,"date":"2026-03-19T09:03:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-19T09:03:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/337159\/"},"modified":"2026-03-19T09:03:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-19T09:03:18","slug":"possum-found-in-hobart-airport-gift-shop-soft-toy-section-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/337159\/","title":{"rendered":"Possum found in Hobart Airport gift shop soft toy section"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/4JYAIIZ_Possum_Close_Up_Focus_638192718_2025_01_09_jpeg\" width=\"1050\" height=\"700\" alt=\"A brushtail possum at the Umpherston Sinkhole \/ Balumbul in Mount Gambier, South Australia.\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"photo-captioned__information\">\n(File) The real possum was &#8220;safely escorted&#8221; out of the terminal by airport management.<br \/>\nPhoto: Supplied \/ Samantha Kotz\n<\/p>\n<p>A real possum nestled among soft toys and animals in a gift shop has thrilled passengers and given airport staff something unusual to deal with in Hobart, Australia.<\/p>\n<p>Liam Bloomfield, multi-site manager with Lagardere AWPL, at Hobart&#8217;s airport in Cambridge, said staff members found the possum around 11.45am on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We found the possum sitting within the native plush,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It looked like he was pretty comfortable with his friends there.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bloomfield said the animal &#8220;was not stressed&#8221; and appeared calm &#8211; although things became much less calm when the animal left the store and took a tour of the airport.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We had passengers here, there and everywhere, taking videos,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It was a bit of a mad rush to make sure it was safe and no passengers were disrupted and that the possum got back home.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Bloomfield said the real possum was &#8220;safely escorted&#8221; out of the terminal by Hobart Airport management.<\/p>\n<p>He said how the possum got into the airport building was &#8220;a true mystery&#8221;, but speculated it could be because of &#8220;redevelopment works&#8221; that are underway.<\/p>\n<p>He described the possum&#8217;s visit as a &#8220;nice little spike of happiness&#8221; during a normal day&#8217;s airport business.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211; ABC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(File) The real possum was &#8220;safely escorted&#8221; out of the terminal by airport management. Photo: Supplied \/ Samantha&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123729,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45,147,406],"class_list":["post-337159","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-science","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337159","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=337159"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/337159\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=337159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=337159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=337159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}