Skunks

Hey guys i'm writing a book about skunks for my senior project this year. So any info of how they live and your ways of trapping them and the such would be much appreciated.



Thanks ~ KT

They stink lol.

General breeding season Feb to April. Male will mate with multiple females. Will use groundhog holes as their own. Digging in yards for grubs and spraying people and pets is the biggest complaint. Generally trap with a cage trap or as incidental in predator sets. They are also nest predators to ground nesting birds

A google search will give you more scientific research articles that will help alot

https://trapperman.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/topics/626495/Skunk_trapping_methods_please#Post626495

Little beggars everyone of them~

they are near sighted, they like to fall into window wells, and striped ones can't climb out. look it up!

I have had 4 at the house this year that look like this. All black with a white skull cap. I never seen any like that before. No stripes at all.

I'd offer them on the Taxi market they might go fast~

I catch them with cable restraints at fence cross under spots.

Taking a little nap waiting for me to come get him.







And in the rain with footholds.

Have got them up to 16lbs here 10-12lb is not uncommon.

That is a beauty Law Dog!

So is that little bugger you posted at the top.

Had a cousin get a all white skunk with black stripes years ago.

I would have loved to catch that one.

I cage them for customers mainly in Spray proof live catch traps...my 3 favorite out of the 15 or so traps are made by Kirk Dekalb or on here Kirk De




They also like to plug up Fisher sets.

This is awesome guys! thanks so much for the responses.

A ton of info on them in the archives that you can find just following a few posts might be all it takes to load up on info!

$100 plus skunk when they get that big!

They are also a major nuisance for beekeepers. They will scratch their way into a hive and tear things up eating honey, wax, and the bees themselves.

Well that is even more incentive to target them.

They will did up underground hornet nests to eat the grubs.

You might want to research different species of skunks. There are four species in North America, striped, spotted, hooded and hog nosed.
I trap the western spotted skunk. I use a pipe trap of my own design because I am in a cage State but before I used 110s and 120s either in boxes or on a run pole. Spotted skunks are good climbers and have no problem going up a tree after bait. They subsist on mice, voles, carrion and insects.
Spotted skunks are divided into Western and Eastern. Westerns breed in March but my understanding is Easterns breed in the fall and have delayed implantation until spring. Typical litter is 3.
When they get ready to spray they do a hand stand on their front feet and can spry any direction even over their head. There is no safe place to face them.