A popular Country-Western song of the 1970s probably says it best with the lyrics: “Crossing the highway late at night, he should’ve looked left and he should’ve looked right.
“He didn’t see the station wagon car. The skunk got squashed, and there you are.
“You got your dead skunk in the middle of the road… You don’t have to look and you don’t have to see, because you can feel it in your ol-fac-to-ry.”
A skunk—by definition—is any of the various common omnivorous black-and-white New World mammals of the weasel family that have a pair of perineal glands from which a secretion of pungent and offensive odor is ejected.
Although capable of living indoors with humans similarly to dogs or cats, pet skunks are relatively rare, partly due to restrictive laws and the complexity of their care.
Pet skunks are mainly kept in the United States, Canada, Germany, the Netherlands, Poland, and Italy.
In the U.S., pet skunks can be purchased from licensed animal shelters and non-profit skunk educational organizations. Baby skunk availability peaks during springtime, immediately following the skunk mating season.
Skunks are probably best known for their ability to spray foul-smelling fluid as a defense against predators. But the creatures reportedly are sensitive, intelligent animals, and like all intelligent animals, temperament varies with each individual. Skunks tend to be highly curious and will open cupboards that are left unlocked.
They can live in an area for years. And, because of their nocturnal habits, they can remain unseen—although perhaps not “un-smelled”—by most people.
Some farmers welcome their presence, realizing that these small predators eat many pest insects and rodents.
Wildlife researchers report that striped skunks live throughout West Virginia. Highest numbers are found in farming areas. Lowest populations occur in densely forested mountain ranges.
“I smell a polecat,” my granddaddy would say if he surmised one of us kids was cheating during a family card game.
If you called someone a polecat or a skunk during my boyhood, you had just launched a barrage of “fightin’ words.”
If you were driving along a moonlit country lane, paved or unpaved, and you detected some ill-smelling odor, you’d blame it on the short-legged prowler.
To defeat a team overwhelmingly, or holding a team scoreless, was referred to as getting “skunked.”
You don’t hear the term much nowadays. The expression seems far too tame for the everyday Mountaineer’s vocabulary.
But rest assured of this: if your bedroom windows are open and you wake up to some offensive odor, a nauseous, paralyzing, putrid, reeking smell, it’s probably your furry buddy—the skunk.
Skunk numbers are up this year, according to the DNR. One reason is that there isn’t much need to shoot or trap skunks. Skunk pelts aren’t worth much, if anything, on the fur market.
And due to their famous (or infamous) defense mechanism, predators generally steer clear of the odoriferous mammals.
Still, skunks are interesting, in an unpleasant sort of way. Take the striped skunk (Mephitis Mephitis) of our region. The critter belongs to the mustelid family, which includes weasels, ferrets, martens, fishers, mink, otters, and badgers.
Skunks certainly were a pest to my late mother-in-law Ellen Lilly of Daniels. The nocturnal creatures dug up portions of her backyard by her apple trees in search of bugs. “I’m goin’ shotgunnin’,” the good-natured matriarch once threatened with a grin.
Be careful, though. Skunks are armed with a potent defensive weapon: a pair of well-developed scent glands that lie beneath the skin on either side of the rectum.
A trip to the library and a review of Peterson’s Field Guide to Mammals revealed that these glands have nozzle-like ducts, which protrude through the anus. Skunks discharge their scent, or musk, through these nozzles, powering the stream with a strong hip muscle contraction.
It can spray in any direction by twisting its rump toward the target—and can even discharge when hoisted by the tail.
A skunk can shoot musk about 12 feet, but will use it only as a last resort, preferring to bluff an enemy instead.
Musk is an oily liquid, creamy or yellowish in color. Field guides refer to the musk as “highly repellant to all mammals.” In short, it stinks!
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Top o’ the morning!