Showdown With A North American Skunk!

America's most notorious skunk is the extremely well documented Peppy Le Pew. This frisky fella hopped his way into our living rooms on saturday mornings all over the country before the turn of the century. While this Warner Brothers icon was known for being madly in love with the most unlucky cat you will ever meet, all we really ever knew of skunks was broken French accents and the smell that notoriously indicates their presence.

picture from thesmartgardener.com

There's obviously a smell issue so let's get down to the bottom of this, and I mean bottom. There are four species of skunk in North America. They are as follows:

• Striped Skunk
• Eastern Spotted Skunk
• Hooded Skunk
• Hog-nosed Skunk

Skunks have a scent gland at the bottom of their tails that shoot their spray. A skunk can spray up to 10 feet and the odor can be smelled up to a mile and a half away. Before they spin around and spray you, they will warn you that you're in trouble by stomping on the ground with their front feet. I have seen bathe in tomato sauce with a bag of sliced potatoes in it to remove the scent. 

A group of skunks is referred to as a surfeit. In my time in Wisconsin I have seen packs of skunks with 6-8 adults and bucket of little baby skunks. Baby skunks can spray at the tender age of 8 days old. They cant even aim until they are about 24 days old because their eyes aren't opened yet. 

I used to live next door to a lady who believed that she was feeding "Ferrel (Alley) Cats". While this may have been true, the meal that she was putting out during the day led to a surfeit at night so we are on first hand observations here. :) Since there was a food supply close, the skunks burrowed under the foundation of a neighbors garage. When I moved out of that house the skunks were still living 2 doors down so I never knew how that ended, moving right along here.

Skunks are nocturnal an eat insects, birds, small rodents, fruits, vegetables and like the badger snakes. Skunks are immune to snake venom so they are known to eat poisonous snakes like rattlers. They have poor eyesight so in compensation they have excellent senses of smell and hearing.

Skunks grow to be anywhere between 6 and 10 pounds and have a lifespan in the wild of 2-4 years. At Timbavati Wildlife Park we have skunks with the scent glands removed so you can safely admire them. I mean they are really cute and cuddly animals to look at when you don't have to take the smell home with you. :)