Skunks in the House
It was a dark and stormy night when I heard a rustling in the kitchen trash. Why was my cat digging through the garbage in the middle of the night? I shouted blasphemous insults, hoping to dissuade her mischievous efforts. The rustling continued until the entire garbage can toppled over. Reluctantly, I arose and flipped on the lights, strolling into the kitchen where I expected to give my cat a good scolding. Except it was not my cat rummaging through the kitchen trash — it was a skunk.
I was more startled than the skunk, who appeared calm, cool, and collected. The skunk interrupted her dinner and slowly shuffled down the hall in that funny sort of waddle skunks have. The skunk seemed to be in no particular hurry. I followed the skunk, not real close, but I was curious where she was going. The skunk waddled down the hall and turned into the bathroom. One of the bathroom cabinets was open and the skunk slipped inside. I dared a peek just as the white plume of the tail disappeared down a hole in the floor. An opening had been cut to run pipes into the bathroom and the hole was just big enough to allow the skunk to sneak through. I was able to block off the hole with a small rock and thought that was the end of the skunk.
A few days later I began to hear soft mewing sounds underneath the trailer. I quickly realized that the skunk had denned up in the crawl space beneath my home and given birth. I soon discovered that the stone blocking the hole was not big enough to keep out tiny little skunk kits. I woke up in the middle of the night and saw three baby skunks patrolling my bedroom. My cat was perched on the desk beside the computer monitor and looked at me with an indignant scowl as if to say, “Dad, won’t you do something about this.”
Baby skunks are not born with the ability to spray their chemical weapons. They have to grow into it. I liked my trailer full of baby skunks, so I secured the kitchen trash and bought more cat food.
Skunks are in the Mustelid family and their closest relatives are ferrets, otters, weasels and badgers. Both the badger and the skunk are plantigrades, which means they walk flat footed instead of on their toes. This is what gives both animals their distinctive waddling shuffling gait. Four legged plantigrades are very slow creatures but both badgers and skunks have effective weapons for defense.
Badgers are just plain fierce. Built low and wide to the ground, badgers weigh in at 22 pounds. Back in the days when I was younger and faster, I had a deal with a friend where if we saw interesting animals, I would hand him my camera and take off running, seeing if I could chase the frightened beasts back towards the camera lens. We were driving along a remote Nevada road, when suddenly a badger scurried across the road. I handed Brian the camera and took off in hot pursuit. Even though the badger was waddling as fast as it could, I was able to catch up rather easily. I planned to circle around to the front of the sprinting beast and herd him back towards Brian. As I neared, the badger turned to face me, rose up on his hind legs and growled. All I remember seeing is a small mountain of muscle, fang, and claw. The badger roared.
“Did you get that picture?” I shouted. “Because I don’t think I am chasing it anymore.”
Skunks have an even more impressive defensive arsenal. They are famous for their chemical weaponry. Skunks have the ability to spray their noxious odors about twelve feet and usually have enough fluid in their bodies for about five or six volleys. It is enough to dissuade almost any predator. According to A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert, the only wild animal to prey on skunks is the great horned owl; a creature with virtually no sense of smell.
The skunks appear to be aware of the potency of their weapon and are rarely frightened. They give several displays before they spray, including stomping their feet and raising their tail. The spotted skunk must do a front leg handstand before spraying. Even skunks do not like their own stench. Skunks rarely spray around their own dens. Experiments have shown that when a skunk’s tail is restrained, they become very reluctant to release their scent.
Arizona is the only state in the Union where all four species of skunk native to North America can be found. On a long moonlit hike with a friend, we stumbled across three of these species. The journey started in Sabino Canyon, followed the Phone Line Trail up into Sabino Basin, and then dropped back down Seven Falls. The most common type of skunk is the striped skunk and that is the species that denned up beneath my Oracle trailer. It was also the first skunk to visit us on the moonlit hike. The striped skunk blocked the trail, with his back to us and his tail in the air. These obvious warning signs stopped us dead in our tracks. We waited patiently until the skunk waddled away from the trail.
Our next skunk was up a tree. The tiny spotted skunk, the smallest of the skunk species is the only species that climb trees. We were fortunate to see a hog-nosed skunk the rarest of the species. The skunk was not as fortunate that we had seen him. Near the end of the hike, where the trail crossed the road, the hog-nosed skunk had been squished flat on the asphalt. The hog-nosed skunks are named after their long bald noses. The noses are useful as the skunk forages through the leaf litter for worms, grubs, insects, and lizards. “All skunks are omnivores and opportunistic feeders” according to A Natural History of the Sonoran Desert “They eat anything from beetles, grubs, and grasshoppers to rodents, birds and carrion, seeds, and fruit.”
The fourth type of skunk is also the easiest to identify — the hooded skunk. Not only does the hooded skunk wear a ruff of fur around his collar but the top of his back and his big fluffy tail are solid white. He was the only type of skunk we did not see on the moonlight hike.
There was this one night when I returned from a backpacking trip in Utah. I was awakened in the middle of the night. I rolled over and saw one of the baby skunks standing up on his hind legs, with the front paws not quite reaching the top of the bed. The little skunk strained and stretched, reaching out to just barely touch me with the tip of his tiny nose, nuzzling my arm. I had forgotten all about the baby skunks living underneath my trailer until just that moment. Apparently, the kits were impatient for fresh cat food.
As the baby skunks grew quickly, the amount of cat food they devoured grew exponentially. My cat continued to be greatly annoyed, perched atop the computer desk, taking turns glaring at the skunks and then glaring at me. She is just lucky the kits were not spotted skunks because then they could have climbed that desk.
Although one of the skunks touched me, I never touched them, even though I am certain they would have let me. I was already afraid that growing up in my living room would make them too accustomed to human beings for their own safety. Several people advised me to capture one of the kits and keep it as a pet, even though it is illegal in this state. Some people even gave me the phone numbers of veterinarians who would perform the surgery to remove the scent glands. By all accounts, skunks make wonderful affectionate pets but, in the end, I felt that the skunks had been born free and needed to live that way.
One night the trio of baby skunks decided they were finally big enough and tough enough to take on the kitchen trash. Working together they were able to topple the can, strewing garbage across my kitchen floor. I chased them a little more aggressively than usual and as the last of the baby skunks waited for his turn to head down the hole in the bathroom cabinet, he stopped and turned to face me. He stomped his little feet. He was warning me that he was about to spray me. Of course, I felt hurt and betrayed but none of that changed the fact that it was now necessary to block up the hole immediately. The baby skunks were all grown up and the den was soon abandoned. I noticed every dead skunk on the road and that time of year, as baby skunks leave the dens for the first time, there are a lot of dead skunks in the middle of the road. Automobiles are by far the leading cause of death among skunks. I hope my baby skunks are out there, safe and okay. I have to wonder since I no longer live in that trailer if the new residents are ever greeted by any midnight kitchen surprises.
