Nosing Around One of Our Outdoor Neighbors

• There’s More to Skunks than the Smell

BY SUZANNE GULDIMANN

Every Malibuite knows it—a terrible combination of burnt rubber, rotten eggs and musk that can be smelled a mile downwind. It can wake a person from a sound sleep, and fills dog owners with a sense of dread. Skunks are active throughout the year in Malibu’s mild coastal climate, but they are more evident in spring, when mating and breeding activities bring them into closer contact with humans, cars and unfortunately, domestic animals. Familiar as the smell may be, the skunk itself is rarely seen, and is the subject of myths and misinformation.
There are actually two types of skunks in the Malibu area. The striped skunk is the common variety. About the size of a small cat, this skunk has the distinctive white stripe that it uses as a warning flag for predators. Residents of the Santa Monica Mountains may also encounter the spotted skunk. Shy, secretive and rarely seen, the spotted skunk is smaller, slighter and more agile than its striped cousin, with a spotted or splotched coat. Armed with the same sulfur-based protective spray, both animals used to be classed as mustelidae, members of the weasel family, but have recently been moved to their own family, mephitidae. Intelligent and resourceful, skunks are adapting to life in an increasingly urban environment.
According to Share Bond, an expert on skunk rescue and rehabilitation and the author of “Stinky Business: How to Rehabilitate Skunks,” skunks have an undeserved bad reputation mostly due to that powerful chemical weapon, but also due to the misconception that they carry rabies. Skunks, she says, like raccoons, bats and other wild animals, can be infected with rabies, but cases are rare in California, and skunks are no more likely to carry the disease than any other animal. She states that skunks are quiet, well behaved, and even beneficial neighbors, as long as humans are willing to take a few steps.
Crepuscular animals that prefer to be active at dawn and dusk, skunks will sometimes venture out during the day, especially when food is available. Orphaned skunks can also be out during the day, searching for their mother. Skunks are voracious omnivores and eat many types of garden pests, including slugs, snails, beetles, grasshoppers, wasps, bees, grubs and even small rodents such as mice. According to Bond, a hungry skunk will even eat a gopher or a young rattlesnake.
Unfortunately, skunks also have a taste for fruit, pet food and garbage. Bond states emphatically that the best way to minimize contact with skunks is to make sure they don’t have access to any of these things. She recommends feeding pets indoors, making sure that garbage containers are securely closed, and that fruit from garden trees isn’t allowed to rot on the ground. The other way to prevent skunk problems, she says, is to seal openings under houses and outbuildings—favorite skunk nesting places—after making sure skunks are being shut out, not in. “And don’t forget to secure the pet door at night.” She says that skunks are intelligent and can quickly figure out how to use a pet door. “Anything a human can push open with one hand a skunk can also manage to open,” she states.
Gregg Feingold of the California Wildlife Center in Malibu concurs with this advice. He says most of the calls the center receives about skunks involve the animals taking up residence under decks and houses. He adds the more draconian suggestion of special fencing that can be installed to extend six to eight inches underground, preventing skunks and other wild animals from ever even entering a yard, but he also stresses that skunks are generally beneficial animals. The staff at CWC can offer advice on skunks, however, they are not equipped to handle them, for that they turn to someone like Brenda Varvarigos.
Varvarigos is a licensed wild animal rehabilitator who is often called in to rescue skunks in the Malibu area. She is one of very few rehabilitators who will take injured adult skunks. She reiterates the advice about sealing access to spaces under buildings and decks to avoid conflict with skunks. All three wildlife experts are adamantly opposed to trapping skunks. They say it doesn’t solve the problem—more skunks will simply move in. Varvarigos also makes a special plea against using poison. Among the animals she rehabilitates are raptors who eat poisoned mammals. She has seen a tragic increase in poison fatalities in recent years. “I see it a lot. It’s very, very sad,” she says.
“Skunks don’t have many predators.” Varvarigos says. The great horned owl is an exception. The smell doesn’t bother the owl, and skunk is a favorite food. According to Varvarigos, other raptors like hawks will also sometimes prey on skunks, although they can be temporarily blinded and disoriented by the skunk’s spray. “Cars are really a skunk’s worst enemy. Skunks have very poor vision,” Varvarigos says. “They don’t see oncoming cars.”
Most predators, Varvarigos states, quickly learn to avoid that distinctive black and white tail, but dogs seem to find skunks utterly irresistible—as many of us know to our sorrow—although the skunk’s scent weapon causes excruciating pain to the dog’s sensitive nose and eyes. Bond recommends always taking dogs out on a leash after dark, even in the backyard, and not allowing them to poke their noses out of sight into shrubs or brush. Varvarigos suggests making plenty of noise to help warn off skunks. “They aren’t nasty, they won’t attack, their scent is their only defense.” She adds that skunks prefer to avoid confrontation.
“Skunks don’t spray for no reason,” Bond says. “What people fear, they create. Don’t scream if you see a skunk. Be quiet, slow, non-threatening and move away.” Bond has been rescuing skunks for 18 years and has never yet been sprayed. “It takes a lot to get them to spray,” confirms Varvarigos. “The skunk will stamp its feet and growl—it’s almost a kind of dance—before spraying.”
If the family dog ignores that warning, Bond recommends distilled vinegar rather than the traditional tomato juice to neutralize the skunk odor, followed by Dawn brand dish soap, and then shampoo and conditioner. Skunk spray, she says, is oily and can’t be washed off with plain water. She also recommends the use of a negative ion generating air filter to clean skunk-tainted air in the house.
Charles Darwin recorded catching a whiff of skunk in 1833 in “The Voyage of the Beagle.” He wrote, “Every animal most willingly makes room for the zorillo [skunk].” Every animal, maybe, except the dog. But with a little bit of work there really can be room for the skunk.
Brenda Varvarigos can be reached at 818.346.8247 or www.valleywildlifecare.org and will assist with Malibu area skunk rescues. Share Bond has an informative skunk site, www.stinkybusiness.org/, and a skunk hotline: 661.264.4400. The California Wildlife Center isn’t licensed to care for skunks, but can offer advice on how to coexist with them: www.californiawildlifecenter.org