The city of North Carolina ends the traditional New Year’s possum fall

But the fall, which has been maintained about 350 miles west of the state capital, Raleigh, has become a cultural hotbed in a rapidly urbanizing state. Animal rights groups and online petitioners said it is cruel to hang a shy, nocturnal animal in a light box over a cheering crowd, amid fireworks and muskets.

The celebration has undergone numerous changes over the years. When festival founder Clay Logan retired, last year he moved to Andrews from neighboring Brasstown, where he started in a rural store that functioned as a community center. Mr. Logan could not be reached for comment.

Mayor Reid said his goal was to keep a tradition alive and attract tourists to help his city’s economy. But he said he is tired of his voicemail being filled with protest calls, so the stars of Tuesday’s New Year’s Eve party program will be a pro-wrestling party and a contest of beauty without women.

“Times change,” Reid said. “Our plan is to have a fantastic party and not have any live animals involved.”

Over the years, when courts sided with animal rights defenders and blocked the use of a living opossum, state legislators in the Democratic Republic of Congo passed several laws trying to allow it. They passed the 2013 “Opossum Right to Work Act,” the 2014 Clay County Opossum Exclusion Act, 2014. A 2015 law excludes Virginia’s opossum from wildlife protections between 29 December and January 2nd.

“We were protecting the people who attended this annual event to continue doing what they had been doing,” said state Sen. Jim Davis, who represents the area. “People in the mountains get tired of people in the city telling them what they can and can’t do.”

In the years when the event was at a legal limit, organizers dropped a stuffed posthumous or stewed stew bowl.

Last year, the city of Andrews used a live opossum, a decision Mayor Reid said he regretted because the opossum used in the gout developed an infection where he had been trapped in a trap. “In retrospect, I may have made a mistake,” he said.

Martina Bernstein, a lawyer for People for Ethical Treatment of Animals, said they needed years of PETA lawsuits and citizen complaints, but it was good news that “organizers are finally leaving the opossums alone.”

The opossum used at last year’s event, Millie, had one leg amputated and lives across the state line at Opossum’s Pouch Shrine in Prosperity, SC

“He’s been able to heal pretty well,” said director Beth Sparks, who cares for more than 60 opossums at her home shrine. “Animals don’t have the ability to feel sorry for themselves, as humans might do.”

Ms. Sparks said she works with Animal Help Now, a Colorado-based advocacy group in Boulder, to repeal North Carolina law that excludes Virginia’s opossum of wildlife protections over New Year’s Eve. . He said he plans to attend a protest in Raleigh after the legislature returns in January.

She suggests that the city of Andrews follow the example of Tallapoosa, Ga.

“I love seeing people have fun, not at the expense of an animal,” he said.

Senator Davis said he expects the fall to be stopped, not finished. “It’s a very harmless event,” he said. “I don’t understand the great slope to do it.”

Write to Valerie Bauerlein to [email protected]