Baby Skunk

Yesterday I got more sleep than I needed. So I wasn't very tired last night. So I decided to stay up and blog. I stayed up until 4:30 am then got a few hours of sleep, then woke up and blogged again. Didn't get in my morning workout at all, but it's a big win (What's Important Now) to catch up on the blog, so that's ok. I finished April and most of May, yay, so I'm happy about hat. I need to figure out a way to not get behind again. So, here's a story from this past weekend. On Friday, after a busy and fun week, we just kinda took it easy at home. I wasn't sure what we would do for activity (we ended up going to Park City to swim in the evening) but I thought we might not do anything. It was a relaxed morning. Little kids woke up and were happy to be at home with their toys, so we went in the basement. Abi and I soon found we were in the mood to clean, and were making great strides until, as I put away some dvds... I came upon a baby skunk in the one basement window well. And then all our productivity was shot as we figured out what to do with a skunk. This was new territory.

The skunk was super cute. But what do we do? I can't get it out, can I? It will spray me, won't it? The kids have been playing down here a little bit the past few days, but I haven't been down in the basement at all this week... how long has this little guy been here?! This window well is our only one that doesn't have a cover on it. It is directly below the kitchen nook, and so there is just a really narrow entrance to the window well, so I guess whoever ordered the well covers years ago didn't bother with going that one, cause it was so narrow that no kid or soccer ball would be able to fall into it anyway. But this little baby skunk did. The poor thing could have been down there for a couple of days. I thought it looked a little weak, not that I have a lot of experience assessing skunks and their health. It was kinda shaky as it walked around looking like it was trying to find a way out.

So, we put a foam pad down so it could try to crawl up it. I have since learned that they are not climbers. We put some apples down, but then googled their diet and apples weren't on it. I didn't have any bugs or worms on hand, haha, so we put down some nuts (walnuts), roots (carrots) and fungi (mushrooms). Then I googled for the local animal control and called them. I asked what they recommend? She said someone would come out to check it out. There were 3 people that came. They got her a lot quicker than I was expecting, so the skunk hadn't had much of a chance to eat or try to climb up the pad. They said it looked pretty small and it's chances for survival without it's mom were small. They said the options were to:

1. Leave it and see what happens (if it was able to crawl out) or it would struggle and slowly starve to death.
2. Leave it and it wouldn't be able to get out and they'd have to come back later to euthanize it.
3. Catch it alive and take it and euthanize it after (which is what they would do if they caught it) but that left a chance that it would get startled and scared and spray our window well.
4. Euthanize it right there in the well. It would die quickly and painlessly and then they'd get it out.

So, from their professional opinion, he was a gonna be a gonner either way. So with a sad heart I decided for option 4. I told them that my kids would be sad so I was going to tell them they were just tranquilizing it and would take it away to release it. Well, that worked until the kids all noticed how they put it in a black plastic bag after wards and tied a knot in it. "Why would they do that?!?!" "How is he going to be able to breath?!" Ummm, they also noticed Abi red faced and quite sad as I had told her the truth as we watched from the basement. Then I told them all the hard fact that they had to euthanize it. "What is that?" They killed it. (Sounds so harsh). Abi was pretty ticked. She said they aren't animal rescue, they are animal murderers. As we drove up to Park City, Sophi had a moment to continue to ponder and said to me "I can't believe you'd rather kill the skunk than get sprayed..." Ok, guilt received. Ugh, poor little guy. Not that we've had great success with abandoned baby animals in the past - see baby quail from 2009, and baby birds from 2017. Yeah, we were only averaging 30% mortality. And that's not counting our monarchs, I'm not sure if they'd raise or lower our numbers. So I've been thinking of the little skunk all weekend. The kids have too. Lily started to pen a book about it - All she's done so far is the cover.

You think that's good, well just look at the backside -

We were all impressed with the backside of the front cover! As Wes said "That must have taken her forever...." Yes, I saw her working on this - it took her a long time! Kids are so funny when they write books. They will get a stack of paper, come up with a title and do a cover, and that's usually as far as they get, which I find to be humorous.

So, I've watched a good chunk of skunk videos on Youtube videos with Abi today - and look at this - these guys were able to get 6 skunk out and only got a little bit sprayed.

Another guy grabbed it by the tail, no spray, little guy left peacefully.

This guys got a family out in a bucket. If I had a whole family in our window, I definitely wouldn't want them all euthanized.

I asked my friends on facebook what they would have done. Two of them who live in the valley here had live traps. Hopefully there wont be a next time, but should I have caught it and just let it go in the woods next to our house? Although if that would be like leaving a little kitten out in the wild without it's mom, that would probably have been bad and he would have died that way.

A little more skunk info: Peta says skunks are really peaceful and gentle. Unfortunately, none of the wildlife rehabilitators close to us here in Utah will take skunks. It appears some people believe skunks are great pets. (here's a video about the Skunk Fest. Who knew there was a Skunk fest?) But, sorry kids, it's illegal to keep skunks as pets in most states, including Utah. Plus, this lady, who seems to really know her skunk stuff, says absolutely NO taking wild skunks in as pets. So that's all the skunk research I've done the past few days. And I think I'll move on with my life now. Again, I'm sorry little skunk. Hope you are happy in skunk heaven.