Trapping A Skunk

A few years ago, we had a couple of annoying raccoons hanging around, and even trying to come in our cat door. At the time, we had a cat door that we could set to be one-way only so that if one of our cats wasn't in before dark, which was always the goal, she could get in later without risk of any of the others going out.

Except, that one winter night, a raccoon decided he'd like to be an inside pet too. There were two raccoons coming around together so I trapped them in a live trap and relocated them to the property of someone I didn't like, about ten miles from here. They didn't come back, and that was a few years ago.



However, now we have four raccoons that come around to eat from the squirrel/bird bowl if I forget to bring it inside at night. I'd guess they were siblings, just past the age where they left their mom but still hanging out together.

That shouldn't be a problem since I have a couple of live traps, except I also see a skunk around here at night. I take Ella out (in my arms) each night before I go to bed so that she can listen to the night sounds, and sometimes the night sounds are of a skunk who doesn't seem to be particularly alarmed to find me standing out on the porch with Ella.

So if I put the traps out for the raccoons, it seems that there is a chance that I'll catch a skunk instead. I told this story elsewhere in the forum once but I'll tell it again because it relates to this. When I was a kid, ten to twelve years old, my cousin and I put a box trap out along a hole that something had dug along the river bank. We were thinking that it was probably a muskrat, and since I wasn't really sure what a muskrat was, it seemed like a good idea to catch one.

The next morning, we went out to find that we had indeed caught something. The box had sprung and there was clearly an animal there. We had made a cage for whatever it might be, so I put the cage in place, then picked up an end of the box in order to encourage the critter to go into the cage.

Instead, I got both barrels from a skunk, which is what we had caught rather than a muskrat. I wasn't just in the vicinity, either. I was right there. I couldn't even see.

I ended up hanging out in the river all day with a bar of soap and they still wouldn't let me in the house. I'm not joking, I slept in the haymow. It was awful.

Although that's the only time I remember being sprayed by a skunk, it wasn't the first time I was sprayed by a skunk. My mom kept a newspaper clipping of the first time I was sprayed by a skunk. I was three years old, maybe four, and was walking along the road. Don't be shocked; nobody ever came down that road who wasn't related to me.

Anyhow, apparently, at least according to the news article, I had come across a litter of identical black and white kittens along the road and thought I should probably take them home. Mom wasn't too happy. Although my mom probably wasn't too happy either, I'm talking about the mother skunk. The article was entitled, "Bad Kitty."

That brings me back to my dilemma. I have had more than my fair share of being sprayed by a skunk, and it seems to me that this would be a likely possibility if I were to trap one of the critters in my live trap.

Yeah, I have read that if you cover the trap with a towel, they won't spray. But I'd rather someone else test that theory out for me first. However, even if that were the case, I'd have to let the thing out of its cage eventually.

 

Apparently, there's no animosity between cats and skunks. In my backyard videos, I have seen cats walking past a skunk as if it wasn't even there, neither one acknowledging the other. The cats always run from the raccoons, although the raccoon never seems to be after them. If there's food and a raccoon comes along, the cat leaves the food to the raccoon.

 

I see someone around here has some common scents.

The only live trap I've set is for raccoons in my attic at my prior residence. They are such destructive little buggers. I don't know what you do if you catch a skunk in a trap. Is there a related thread around here, or was it somewhere else there were these discussions? I've seen arguments on whether a skunk will/won't release it's scent if you just shoot it. I gotta think there is a discrete answer to that. Personally I think since a skunk sprays at its enemies, then there are muscles involved and not merely sphincters that would relax upon death. Perhaps the reported differences are the "instant kill"shots versus the "mortally wounded"shots.

Other than that, trapping a live skunk sounds like getting a tiger by the tail...now what?

 

The skunk has to be able to push with it’s front feet and also be able to raise its tail. If the trap is small enough that the skunk can’t raise it’s tail, the you can just open the end and let it walk back out. After being trapped, it probably will not go back inside again.

There was another thread about skunks, @John Brunner ; but not specifically about trapping one.

http://www.seniorsonly.club/threads/skunked.17713/

 

This is the Trapping a Skunk thread.