Where I live in rural New Mexico, I see striped and hooded skunks throughout the year. I see skunk tracks all the time, every day, around my house, in the fine substrate of the road that leads up to the irrigation ditch and in the garden enclosed against deer and javelina but not skunk. Skunks regularly explore my wrap-around porch, so that my husband and I watch the animal out one window and then hurry to see it from another.
Skunks are often under the bird feeders. We smell them in the morning—the result of some interaction with another animal. We’ve startled them in the early evening. They jump. We jump. Once, jumping back, a hooded skunk fell off the rise of the porch onto his back. Chagrined, he waved his paws in the air before more calmly turning over and galumphing away. These skunks have never sprayed or shown us any threat behavior. We don’t have any pets for them to worry about. If we live companionably with any wild mammal, we live companionably with skunks.
Sometimes we see skunk families, mothers and juveniles. Once I saw a mother determinedly waddle and forage while an addled youngster, also determined, dragged under her belly still trying to nurse. Juvenile males disperse at three months or so. Juvenile females might stay for almost a year. Mostly we see the solitary skunk. It’s like a fashion show. Something from Chanel. A bit of art deco. That black and white aesthetic.
We are lucky in New Mexico to have four skunk species. The striped and hooded skunks have what biologists call an “honest signal,” two lines pointing to the rear end where two anal glands produce and hold about an ounce of concentrated sulfurous fluid. The hog-nosed skunk is particularly adapted to the desert, with a powerful upper body for climbing in rocky areas, an elongated snout, and long claws for digging.
The back of a hog-nosed skunk is often luminously white, from the top of the head to the beautiful white tail. The western spotted skunk has a coat of partial stripes or spots. As well as their defensive spray, spotted skunks intimidate by doing a handstand on their front feet, performing a split with their back legs, and walking forward in imitation of a flying carpet. Stop and imagine that for a moment. Google it on YouTube.
The print of an adult striped skunk is about 1½ to 2 inches long and can look, unnervingly, like a small human hand. On both front and back feet, the three middle toes are partially fused to facilitate digging and face forward, with Toe 1 (on the inside of the track, like your thumb) and Toe 5 slightly splayed to the side. Front and hind tracks usually show handsome claw marks, with the digging claws of the front feet much longer than the hind.
Sharman Apt Russell is a longtime nature writer. For more information, go to www.sharmanaptrussell.com.
