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This past week, Mary Alice and I had three unusual events occur. We were plagued with a bat, rats and skunks. The first event occurred one morning when I awoke and I saw a bat flying around our bedroom. I quickly woke Mary Alice and was telling her that we had a bat in our bedroom when the bat flew over her head. Her blood curdling scream frightened the bat and it flew around the room in a frenzy.
I shut the bedroom door so the bat would stay in the room. Then, I waited for the bat to land, but it never did. I went downstairs for my morning coffee and returned to the bedroom, expecting the bat to be hanging from one of the window curtains, but it was not. I searched everywhere in the room but never found the bat.
I opened a window and left the room, shutting the door behind me. The window remained open all day until we went to bed at 11 p.m. The bat was nowhere to be found and I convinced Mary Alice the bat probably flew out the open window.
The second event actually began several weeks earlier when a neighbor moved away and left a lot of garbage in a shed. Later, I noticed the landlord cleaning out the shed. His truck was piled high with garbage from inside the building. It wasn't long after that I began to have signs of an animal digging and chewing at the door where I keep my garbage can. Our neighbor mentioned that she had seen a rat. I set a trap and put out bait in my carriage shed. That same week I noticed a large hole dug under our garden shed. I immediately thought it must have been a woodchuck because Mary Alice had seen one in the driveway.
I set a live trap for the woodchuck but nothing entered the trap.
Several mornings later I went out to check the bait in the trap and was greatly surprised to find a skunk in the shed. I quickly shut the door and reset the live trap. The next morning I checked the trap, and there was the skunk, which sprayed me with a small amount of essence of musk perfume. Later, when releasing the skunk, I was given a much larger spray. Now, I am thinking the hole under the shed could be skunks instead of a woodchuck. I have continued to put out bait and it continues to disappear.
The skunk was a juvenile and I suspect its family has just broken up. Our common skunk has few enemies in the wild, with the exception of the great-horned owl. Unfortunately, the skunk's effective weapon does not work against the great-horned owl or our automobiles, and many are killed on the highways. However, skunks are a prolific lot and have been able to hold their own against man's civilization and even thrive. Our word skunk comes from the Algonquin Indians, who called the animal seganku, from which some say the city of Chicago received its name. The French Canadians called the skunk enfant du diable, meaning child of the devil.
Although the mating season for the skunk begins in February, it can continue into mid-April, with the peak of the mating season, in Pennsylvania, occurring in March. The gestation period is 63 days, with the litter size ranging from four to six young. A male skunk is known as a boar and a female as a sow.
The skunk in my trap was a juvenile and probably from a family unit that had just broken up. Skunks can either den up alone or with other skunks. According to the Game News, the record number of skunks found in one Pennsylvania den was 18 females and one male. Only one male dens with the females, and he drives all other males away. A den can be in an abandoned woodchuck hole or under an uprooted tree. In our towns and cities, skunks often den under porches and outbuildings.
Striped skunks suffer from poor vision at a distance of more than two or three feet. A keen sense of smell enables them to easily locate food, which varies with the season.
A skunk usually gives an ample warning before spraying, a weapon only used when it feels threatened. Warnings usually include lifting the tail; turning its back towards the danger and sometimes pounding the front feet in a drummer-like fashion.
The family unit breaks up as the young reach three months of age. The juvenile females could continue to share their mother’s den; however, young males are evicted by the dominant male and forced to find other suitable den locations. So, I am guessing the skunk that I trapped was a young male.
I have reset the live trap, and I still have bait out for the rats and I have not seen the bat. One of my jobs as a game warden was answering animal complaints and this past week I felt like I was back at work.
Bill Bower is a retired Pennsylvania Game Commission Wildlife Officer. Read his blog and listen to his podcasts on the outdoors at www.onemaningreen.com.