Wild Stories: Skunks
Close Encounters with the Foul-Odored Ones
Wild Stories is a monthly newsletter in which I write about an animal, a plant, a landscape, or a natural phenomenon. I have engaged with nature for decades through observation, physical experience, and study. Many species and ecological environments are threatened by habitat loss, climate chaos, and a lack of legal protection and kinship with the natural world. With Wild Stories, I share a bit about the lives of our flora and fauna and the incredible landscapes we live in.
I first smelled a skunk long before I ever saw one. My first memory of skunks is sitting in the backseat of my mom’s car, driving outside the city, and suddenly smelling an odor, unlike any other smell I had encountered at my young age. It’s the kind of smell that you never forget and can always identify. Skunks are one of America’s best-known species.
Many of us were introduced to skunks via the wildly passionate and species-confused romantic Pepe Le Pew in our childhood cartoons.
Skunks are native to North, Central, and South America. In North America, they roam an extensive range, stretching from southern Canada to northern Mexico and from the Atlantic to the Pacific oceans. Multiple species exist, and the striped skunk has adapted to various habitats, including wildlands, farmlands, woodlands, forests, ravines, grasslands, suburbs, cities, and industrial settings. The striped skunk (Mephitis mephitis) is the most recognizable of the twelve species in the Mephitidae family.
Skunks are primarily nocturnal and forage for food throughout the night. As omnivores, they eat plants and animals and have learned to scavenge human garbage for leftovers. Expert diggers, they use their long sharp claws to dig holes, looking for grubs, worms, and moles. Vegetable gardens and beehives (they eat the honeybees, larvae, and honey) are like grocery stores for skunks.
They are the size of a large housecat and maintain a warning coloration to predators: a distinctive white stripe down their back and often along their sides. This warning tells predators there is potential danger or undesirable effects if attacked. Spraying is their final defense strategy. Skunks enjoy an immediate kind of respect; everyone fears their defense system except the forgetful brains of dogs and their only predator, great-horned owls, who lack a sense of smell.
Encounter #1
My first in-person meeting with a skunk was on a remote mountain in central Idaho, where I stayed in a makeshift cabin installed in one-third of a pole barn. An eight-hour drive from home, I ventured there alone for a long weekend of solitude and Mother Nature. I unpacked, made up the futon for sleeping, and opened one of the big barn doors to sweep out the dead bugs and mice. I then headed out for a hike.
As the evening temps chilled, I pulled down the big barn door and settled into the futon for a long night of sleep. A moonless night, I left a light on in the bathroom, closing the door enough to allow for a sliver of light to see for those mid-life, mid-night bathroom trips. Relaxing into the liminal space between awake and asleep, I saw a flash of light near the bathroom. A quick shot of moving brightness…the most essential word being moving. I jumped off the futon, reached for the overhead lights, and grabbed my only weapon: a broom. There was a scurry of movement again, and I saw enough to know it was a skunk. Now hiding somewhere in the cabin.
Poor creature; he saw an overly stimulated, fearful, menopausal woman standing on the futon, swinging a broom, yelling “shoo” and “out.” Lord knows I would have been terrified if I was the skunk. He immediately went into defense mode, and the spraying began. This memory is fully intact, and I will never forget the eye-watering odor. I escaped outside to an old camper (our guest room) and sat in it, freezing in my PJs and wondering what to do next. I sat there until sunrise, then called a neighbor, who called another neighbor who sent their teenage son to trap and remove the skunk. An hour later, the skunk was headed out to the fields, leaving behind an oily covering on everything in the rustic cabin. The first neighbor wrapped me in a blanket and invited me to her place for breakfast and a shower. That afternoon, I returned to my foul-smelling cabin and spent the next two days washing everything, including the walls. My sense of humor returned, and I chuckled as I thought about what a good story to tell my friends.
A skunk’s spray is an oily, yellow-colored liquid called musk and is created by two grape-sized internal glands located on each side of the anus. Each sack holds a teaspoon of the liquid that can be sprayed accurately up to ten feet. The odor is described as a blend of rotten eggs, garlic, and burnt rubber. The spray is potent, causing watery eyes, nasal irritation, breathing difficulty, and nausea. It can temporarily blind and stun the recipient, allowing the skunk to escape.
Once threatened or alarmed, skunks generously offer warnings: growling, hissing, stamping their feet, and raising their tails before spraying. The spotted skunk skillfully launches into a handstand on their front legs and sprays if the warnings are ignored. This is a last resort because it takes ten days to refill their glands, leaving them vulnerable to future threats.
Encounters #2A, 2B, 2C
Fast forward twenty years later, living on five rural acres, I let my two dogs - unleashed - out to do their business. A few minutes later, they came running back to the house, so I opened my front door to let them in, and as they stormed the threshold, I smelled skunk - but it was too late. Both dogs had been sprayed in the face, and one flew into my walk-in closet, rolling his face into the wool rug I had in there. The other dog rolled his face on the living room rug. I grabbed both of them, secured their leashes, and went outside to wash them.
Unfortunately, I had a job interview that afternoon, and the smell of skunk had immediately permeated ALL of my clothing in the closet. There was no time to clean my outfit, so I sprayed perfume - everywhere - and headed to the interview. By then, I must have acclimated to the smell and believed the perfume trick had worked. As I sat down to face the panel of interviewers, I watched as their noses twitched a bit, and they looked around, perhaps to confirm what they thought they were smelling. I broke the smelly ice by explaining that yes, it was me that they were smelling, and I offered a quick retelling of my morning’s skunk adventure, smiling my way through the story. I wasn’t hired, and in the end, I thought that was a good thing since they did not appear to have a sense of humor about my odoriferous event. Dog and skunk encounters have happened a few more times since because, as I pleaded to the skunks in my Ode: Dedicated to the Ones I Love:
Also to the skunks: I am sorry my dogs chased you, but was spraying necessary every time? A glimpse into one of the best defense systems ever. A lesson that dogs don’t remember, so dog tenders must.
2B: Another memorable dog/skunk/house encounter happened several days before I invited Guy, whom I had just met, to my house for dinner. I’m sure I warned him that my dogs had once again chased a skunk who sprayed them both in the face, and the scented evidence lingered in my home. Fortunately, he was raised in the country and has his own tales of skunk encounters.
2C: C is for our bully of a cat, who apparently confronted a skunk about his territory and was promptly sprayed in the face. With his dignity barely intact, he returned to the house, went to my exercise room, and spent the next 24 hours excessively blinking his eyes and cleaning his face.
There are various products and home remedies for eliminating the smell and oily residue on pets' bodies. For commercial products, look for the words enzyme cleaner. Tomato juice is not effective! We have successfully used this homemade solution: 1 unopened bottle of hydrogen peroxide, ¼ cup of baking soda, and 1-2 teaspoons of liquid dish soap. This solution should not be made in advance and stored because it can cause a closed container to explode.
If the musk has found its way onto clothing or household items, washing with a strong dish soap like Dawn will remove the oils. But be prepared for a lingering odor for several weeks. Avoid job interviews and first dates during this time.
Encounter #3
About ten years ago, I noticed my heating system was not producing much heat inside the house. I called a HVAC person who confirmed with his measuring gadget that there was little heated air being blown into the house. He opened one of the small doors to my crawl space, took a quick look with a flashlight, and proclaimed that it looked like a critter had been living in the crawl space and likely damaged the ductwork. He explained that HVAC people would repair ductwork, but not until the likely mammalian cause of the damage was removed. Another company was called, and the technician crawled into the space and, within a minute, yelled, “Oh my God! You are not going to believe this!”
That can’t be good.
He described a large nest made with hay (from my garden beds), sticks, and pink fiberglass insulation torn out of the flexible ductwork ripped from the various vent openings (explaining the lack of directed heat in the house). Several nights later, we watched a skunk try to dig its way under the gravel in front of the crawl space door. We had installed rocks and concrete blocks as a barrier. I became obsessed with watching for a skunk around my house.
When the technician arrived to begin the nest removal process, he wore a filtered breathing mask because the skunk had eliminated waste regularly and there was likely mold. Over several days, he pulled out layers of what we determined was a skunk’s lair. In my Ode, I noted the lesson offered by the skunk:
To the male skunk who smartly recognized human failure to block access properly and took up residence in my crawl space for two consecutive winters. Collecting straw and plant matter from the garden beds to create his large winter lair, he then discovered the benefits of insulation and tore apart my heating ductwork. A glimpse of a skunk’s wintering life and an expensive lesson on blocking ingress
Skunks live solitary lives. Males and females mate in the early spring (usually March), and males resume their solo wanderings. Females take on full responsibility for raising the 4-7 kits, who are born in May of each year. Skunks don’t hibernate, but they do take the winter off, entering into a type of dormancy called torpor. Females often burrow together in a den during colder months to benefit from communal heat. Males seek a den of their own, digging burrows and closing the opening with plant material. Skunks are opportunists and gladly will den under porches and porches, as well as crawl spaces, if they are readily available.
Last Close Encounter #4
While walking my dogs on a sunny morning the following spring, I smelled skunk. I immediately leashed the dogs and then looked around. About 50 feet ahead, in the middle of the road, sat a skunk—I am convinced it was the one we had evicted from our crawl space — staring back at me.
He didn’t move. In my now considerable experience with skunks, they always have the right of way. I encouraged him to move on, but he refused.
I was being held hostage by a skunk in the middle of the road.
My dogs would have gleefully charged him, but previous encounters told me that wasn’t a smart idea. We stood there for several minutes, and I began to howl like a coyote; my dogs immediately joined in. The three of us howled loudly for several minutes, and the skunk, likely convinced we were the craziest looking coyotes he had encountered, scrambled off into the field.
A week later, we smelled skunk on the road and on our daily walks saw the remains of a skunk who had likely been hit by a car. Eventually, almost all of the body was scavenged by other animals - except the gland that produces the highly recognizable skunk smell. It took several weeks for the smell to disappear entirely.
Skunks benefit from excellent senses of smell and hearing. They have poor vision and cannot see objects more than 10 feet away, which likely is a significant factor in their high rates of mortality caused by road traffic. Their lifespan is about 3 years, but striped skunks have adapted well to human-influenced habitat changes and their populations are stable. Populations of eastern spotted skunks found in eastern, central, and southern states are declining rapidly due to habitat loss.
Resources
https://blog.nwf.org/2018/05/the-mystery-of-the-spotted-skunk/
https://animaldiversity.org/
https://northernwoodlands.org/outside_story/article/winter-skunk
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skunk
https://suekusch.substack.com/p/dedicated-to-the-ones-i-love?utm_source=publication-search
Book: Survivors in the Shadows: Threatened and Endangered Mammals of the American West by Gary Turbak
Book: The Skunk Control Manual: How to Keep Skunks Aways and Completely Remove and Eliminate Odor by Stephen Tvedten
Photos: Linda Steider is a nature and wildlife photographer in White Salmon and co-owner of Made in the Gorge in Hood River. See more of her photos at her gallery or www.steiderstudios.com and on Facebook or Instagram @Steider Studios.
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Skunk stories to share? Tell us your smelly tales.
I remember a skunk on the cutoff who turned me around! Perhaps the same Le pieu.! I've buried a dead skunk that sprayed my two dogs. One of my pups brought the dead one to me. What a thrill
which is why I'm doing something every day to deal with it. Not sure I have the quarter mil it takes to move.