June 21st, 2010

I read a post on here a few weeks ago about a person who had a skunk in their trap and needed help. I wanted to share my recent experience too…

First of all, I must admit, skunks scare me. When I was a kid someone told me that skunk spray can blind a person. This is actually true although the effects are temporary. Still. The thought of smelling like a skunk for a week or two is not my idea of a good time. (If it happens, take a bath in ketchup.) Second, I have never had a problem with skunks at my house. I am very, vigilant about trash and never store garbage any place animals can get to it. My neighbor, just down the road, however, is less careful. When he came over to our house and told us about a mother skunk and her 4 little babies who had taken up residence under his porch I had to roll my eyes a bit.

I said, “Oh, back by where the garbage cans are?”

He said, “Don’t give me that look?”

I said, “What look?” and at that point I do believe I rolled my eyes.

Well. Somehow my attitude got me signed up for Skunk Capture duty. This “duty” took place at night, as skunks are nocturnal. I had, as is my way, called up the Havahart company and asked for instructions. They recommended the feral cat trap, as the size is about the same and the cover is darn handy. So there we were, my friend, his 10 year old son and me. In the moonlight, watching for skunks. Now any skunk that saw us, or in fact any human being that saw us, would have been scared because we were dressed in an odd and eccentric fashion. We had raincoats on with plastic trash bags on our legs and arms and a paper bag over our heads with holes cut out. If we saw a skunk we were to duck down so the spray wouldn’t hit us in the cut out eyes. We looked like big lumps of left-over Halloween costumes.

The trap was set out with sardines (stinky to catch stinky). The mama skunk came out and we didn’t see what happened as we were shielding out eyes in the paper bags but after a while we heard the snap of the trap.

I did not go to release the skunk into the wild blue yonder but my friend followed orders and went with a covered cage (that comes with the trap), wore his raincoat and paperbag, carried the trap very low and slow, waited until the skunk was quiet and then released it and froze like a statue of a crazed skunk releaser. I am so glad it wasn’t me.