Skunk thread

[Barko1]

HighZ was complaining that all he get under his porch are skunks, not cute foxes. Reminded me of camping in a tent camper one time in Upper Michigan and I heard a noise that I believed was being created by mischievous raccoons right outside my door. I grabbed a pan of water to fling at them, quickly opened the door to let them have it, and then saw the white stripe. I am still surprised how I controlled the pan of water and just quietly closed the door and wished the little critter well. No damage done.

Other bad mammal stories?

 

[highz]

There's not much to tell about the skunk family under the deck. I didn't have the heart to evict them, so just put up with occasional aromas and watched where I went at night. The next year the mama skunk (or a different one) relocated down the hill a bit to under my tool shed. Much better. I do get raccoon families that scrounge in the yard on a nightly basis, but they haven't moved in (yet). They have high entertainment value for Katie the collie. I figure that since their ancestors were in the mountains before my house was there, I need to share my space.

I've come within a few feet of a skunk a couple of times during morning twilight while walking around bleary-eyed at the end of a night's observing. This was apparently a civilized skunk and gave a raise of the tail, but no more. Lucky.

Bear story (minor hijack): I put up bird feeders on a cable and pulley system between my deck and a pine tree. They are about 25 feet off the ground and I thought they were raccoon- and bear-proof. A few nights ago, Katie started barking like she does when the raccoons come around, so I let her out on the deck to have her fun barking. She ran out, barked twice, then started scratching like mad at the door to be let back in. Yep. Bear. In the morning I discovered that one of the feeders was in bear's arm reach from the pine tree, as it was lying on the ground all busted up. I've adjusted the distance from the tree, and so far so good, but we will see.

OK, back to skunks. I want to hear Mark's story.

 

[MarkBC]

This happened years ago in my current house in Bend, Oregon.

I had gone to bed, but I don't think I was fully asleep yet. I heard a noise out in the hall -- a kind of scuffling sound, and I assumed that my then-cat (an accomplished hunter) had brought in some still-living creature through the cat door and the noise was their struggle. Thinking, "Kitty, why don't you leave those little guys alone!?", I swung out of bed, turned on the light...
...and saw a skunk amble into my bedroom!

It must have come in through the cat door, attracted by the smell of cat food.
I couldn't believe it! Was I dreaming?!? All I could think of was, "If this thing 'goes off' I'll have to burn the house down for the insurance money!".
It hopped up on my bed -- WHAT!?

It sniffed around and then jumped off.
It snuffled its way around the perimeter of my bedroom while I stood out of its way ("Please don't go off...oh god, PLEASE don't go off!!").
My bedroom has a sliding glass door that opens onto a small balcony. I opened the slider a bit. When the skunk, following the wall, got to the open slider it went through it out onto the balcony. I closed the door.
I heard the skunk walking around out there for a couple minutes, then it must have jumped off into the bushes below.
It was gone!

And I was saved the bother of arson and insurance fraud!

A couple of surprising things about this:
- The skunk never emitted any odor or even raised its tail to threaten, so I thought that maybe it was somebody's de-scented escaped pet. But you'd think that even if it didn't have anything to spray that it would still have the instinct to try/display-threat. I concluded that it was a wild skunk, but it just wasn't threatened enough to feel the need to threaten me.
- This was a spotted skunk, not the more-common striped skunk, and I didn't know that we had any of that species in central Oregon -- another reason that I initially suspected that it was a pet. But I later looked it up, and the western spotted skunk is found throughout most of the West from Mexico to southern B.C.

All's well that end's well!

 

[MarkBC]

Another story (a little shorter but more-violent

) of home-invasion by wild animals, same house, also years ago:

My cat's food bowl is in the utility room and the cat door leading out on to the deck is a couple of feet away...so it's not surprising that neighborhood cats and medium-small wild animals let themselves in to help themselves to free food.
One night I was mostly asleep and I was awoken by the sound of noise coming from the utility room. I got up and turned on the light and saw two raccoons, one after the other, stuffing their furry-fat bodies through the small cat door. They'd been gorging on cat food. So far, this isn't unusual or particularly notable...

I went back to bed and dozed off... A little later I was awoken again by noise from the utility room. I got up, went into the utility room, turned on the light -- and gazed in shock and horror at the cat door!

The cat door I had at the time was a thick, flexible, vinyl-flap type...but most of the vinyl flap and been chewed away, leaving a gaping hole!

I knelt down and looked out through the gaping hole in the flap and -- a foot away outside on the deck -- a large raccoon was looking back at me and growling threateningly! I'm sure it was saying, "What we did to this cat door we could have done to your face!

Next time it might be!"
Ummm.....Maybe I should mention that back in those days I, on occasion, indulged in "substances"...and this was one of those "occasions", so I may have imagined what the raccoon was saying...but all the rest is fact.

 

[MarkBC]

A skunk-bunch!
This is a mom-skunk with 3 or 4 of her kids (aka, "kits") packed tightly around her as they forage for edible seeds under my birdfeeder next to the deck. I took this photo at night (with flash) in June 2008.
When I stepped outside they waddled off -- still in a tight bunch (Man, it was cute!

) -- to avoid confrontation.
Not even a threat of spraying me -- they'd really rather leave than spray. But I'm glad that they retreated away from the house rather than under the deck (like in highz's situation)

.

 

[Barko1]

Another story (a little shorter but more-violent

) of home-invasion by wild animals, same house, also years ago:

My cat's food bowl is in the utility room and the cat door leading out on to the deck is a couple of feet away...so it's not surprising that neighborhood cats and medium-small wild animals let themselves in to help themselves to free food.



Dog/cat doors are great, makes life better for all but they do have their draw backs. Our cat has brought dazed rodents and rabbits inside, to share I guess. Interestingly there are lots of skunks and infestations of skunks on a little more urban area 2 miles away but where I am, spread out and backing up to miles of federal land, we never get them. Did see a group of 12 mule deer last week, that's rare. May be the drought and resulting food and water issues are pushing them in.

 

[highz]

A skunk-bunch!
This is a mom-skunk with 3 or 4 of her kids (aka, "kits") packed tightly around her as they forage for edible seeds under my birdfeeder next to the deck. I took this photo at night (with flash) in June 2008.
When I stepped outside they waddled off -- still in a tight bunch (Man, it was cute!

) -- to avoid confrontation.
Not even a threat of spraying me -- they'd really rather leave than spray. But I'm glad that they retreated away from the house rather than under the deck (like in highz's situation)

.



3 or 4 indeed. I tried to figure out how many were in that skunk clump picture and couldn't. Very cute critters.

 

[MarkBC]

3 or 4 indeed. I tried to figure out how many were in that skunk clump picture and couldn't. Very cute critters.

The funny thing was that they weren't just huddled together to get at food -- when they moved they stayed that way!
Like, the kids only felt comfortable in continuous contact with Mom...or maybe it was Mom's rule and the kids were just very obedient.
I wish I'd shot a video of it!