North Carolina town abandons New Year’s Eve possum drop after outcry

In this ‘war on New Year’s’, the animals won.

A North Carolina town has nixed its tradition of dropping a live possum at the stroke of midnight — the odd celebration born as a “redneck response” to the Big Apple’s classic Times Square ball drop, according to a new report.

Mayor James Reid of Andrews, N.C. — a tiny community of just 1,800 — told the Wall Street Journal on Monday that he was canning the event because he was sick of receiving protest calls over the two-decade tradition.

“It’s done,” Reid said. “They can stick a fork in it.”

The New Year’s Eve marsupial drop began in the 1990s and attracted hundreds of revelers each year who gathered to see a live possum lowered in a clear plastic box at midnight.

But animal rights groups said the practice of putting a shy, nocturnal animal in a brightly lit box surrounded by fireworks and large crowds was cruel, according to the report.

Millie, the possum used in last year’s drop, developed an infection after her leg was caught in a trap and she had to have it amputated, the report said.

The drop was originally held in neighboring Brasstown but was move to Andrews last year when the festival founder retired.

Reid said he wanted to keep the tradition alive but on Monday declared “Times are changing.”

“Our plan is to have an awesome party and not have any live animals involved whatsoever.”

The town of Tallapoosa in Georgia also has an annual New Year’s Eve possum drop but stresses that their possum is stuffed.

Republican lawmakers have repeatedly tried to make outrage over the North Carolina tradition a political argument and passed legislation including the “Opossum Right to Work Act” in 2013 to keep it alive.

“People in the mountains get tired of people in the city telling them what they can do and what they can’t do,” local Sen. Jim Davis said Monday.

“It’s a very innocuous event,” he said. “I don’t understand the big to-do over it.”