Odd Things You Run Across

A skunk, evidently, was living under the the front stoop of a clients home. Whoever did the work on the house left an opening to the outside so the skunk could come from the stoop, crawl between the floor joists, walk on a shelf in the ceiling of the basement and then relieve himself over the edge so that the excrement fell 7 feet and splashed on the basement floor. The skunk lived outside and used the inside as a toilet instead of the other way around. Caught the skunk on the second day and then found 6 babies huddled up with her outside of the trap. Just grabbed them and was done. Last year a skunk either fell into the basement or came down through wall, hard to tell. Got him in the basement after she said she thought he had been in there for several weeks. Another family had left the garage door opened allowing the skunk into the basement. He then climbed up into the insulation, stayed there all day, for many days. They couldn't catch him so I set a cage. I was a little surprised how well that skunk could climb.

Had a strange one this week,(actually many, but this one sticks out )...A guy has a 14' X 20' concrete bunker that is 15 feet underground, with a ladder going to it in a 2 foot square opening. He left the hatch open, and at least two adult skunks had fallen in, and he thinks maybe three. I asked if it was relatively empty down there, and he explained there was numerous places they could hide behind the stuff he had stored. He was going to shoot them, except he knew they would spray,( I would have paid money to watch that show). I really did not want it, as it was an hour and a half away, but gave him a price anyway, one if they spray, and another if I get them out without them spraying, which I believe we could have with a little work and patience. Never did hear back from him.

Had a skunk in an old basement. No holes going in. No windows open or broken. No bulkhead.
Found a pipe half way up a wall with wires running through it. 120' from the house was an old barn.
The skunk fell into a pit and used the pipe to get into basement. It was his only way out of the pit.
Every time I tell people I've seen it all, I get another half dozen jobs a year that I'd never seen before.

One that really surprised me was a squirrel job. There were two holes in porch roof. Usually I set one and block the other.
For some reason, I put a colony trap on both surrounded by tubes. The next day I had a full litter of grays in one colony and a full litter of reds in the other.

Love to hear all the strange happenings. Set a beaver location two days ago. Went back yesterday and the dam was gone, no pond, just a small creek. Called the town, they didn't mess with it. New dams don't usually go out. The water was at least 7 feet deep by the culvert, so the beaver had to be there for weeks to get the dam so high. They had a good start on the lodge too. My luck, the night I set the dam blows on its own, go figure. There were tracks in the mud after the dam blew.

Jim, I'll bet that was your worst beaver job by a dam site!

Jim, those beaver saw you & moved out fast. keep your sneakers dry.

I try not to do anything major, at first at least, when it comes to beaver dams, lodges etc. Just leave them alone. As Don LaFountain say, "nibble around the edges." Don't want to spook anything into leaving by too much disruption, just have them stay and get caught. This one was a different as it wasn't a man made dam blow out, just happened. Seems like the beaver would be reluctant to give up on the whole works as they had a nice house started on the bank and had been there for some time. If I had ripped the dam down it would have been my fault if they left. One positive aspect is that I had cages set, which were left high and dry. No worry about pets, kids, people in general. You have to be concerned when setting Hancocks, conibears. A town blew out a culvert that left a pair of 660's high and dry some years back. At least the thieves we kind enough to leave the rerod stakes. Have had a few instances were conibears have been left exposed after dams are torn out and ponds are drained, which is always a worry when using them.

Kind of off topic but I found a small piece of material that said victoria secret on them the other day floating in a city pond while setting muskrat traps. I wonder how they got there ???