A Season for Love and Skunks (Little Green Notebook)

There's more than romance in the air

Valentines Day is upon us. School children are putting the finishing touches on their Valentine boxes, errant boyfriends are buying up the last of the long-stemmed roses, and skunks, a la Pepe LePew, are obsessed with their own romances.

Welcome to skunk season. During February and March, male skunks emerge from their dens and prowl looking for love. Competing males spray each other, females spray undesirable males, and the smell of skunk permeates the air.

Just last week I got a good whiff of skunk, but I never saw the culprit. In fact, the only skunk I’ve ever seen here in Alabama was a de-scented skunk named Fatley, a member of my stepmother Janie’s menagerie when we met.

I did, however, have an up-close and personal encounter with a striped skunk, Mephitis mephitis, when I lived in Massachusetts.

At the time, Joe and I were a doe-eyed young couple with two baby girls, a pet rat, and a Giant Schnauzer named Garth living in a three-room apartment on the campus of Perkins School for the Blind, where we both worked.

One February night I took Garth out for a walk. We strolled along, enjoying the break from the chaos of suppertime, bathtime, and bedtime. Garth stuck his head into a hedge and immediately jumped back. Suddenly, the air filled with poison gas. My eyes stung, my throat constricted, my lungs burned.

An angry skunk leapt out of the bushes just feet in front of me. Our eyes locked briefly.

Without pretense of heroics, I dropped the leash and sprinted away. Garth ran after me, and with the skunk following in hasty pursuit, we high-tailed it to our building.

I raced inside and up the stairs with Garth, shoving him out onto our tiny balcony and closing the sliding glass doors behind him. My whole body stung and burned. This was not just an odor, it was a full-on chemical assault.

We called an after-hours veterinarian who advised us to bathe Garth in tomato juice, a remedy which is now debunked. With our 85-pound dog drenched in ten gallons of tomato juice, the bathroom resembled a crime scene.

The next day we took Garth to be professionally cleaned and shaved bald. He came out reeking of powerfully of scented floral shampoo which barely masked the stench of skunk.

Garth retained a certain sickly sweet skunky aroma all the rest of his days, despite continued grooming and perfuming.

What in the world is skunk spray, and why is it so horrible?

Skunk oil is produced in the anal glands, little sacs which all carnivores, including humans, have. If Anal Gland Acrobatics were an Olympic sport, skunks would take the gold. Their anal glands are equipped with squirting nipples which they can aim and even rotate individually, often going for the offending animal’s face. Skunks can hit their target up to 20 feet.

Skunk spray contains compounds called thiols, which are also found in rotting carcasses and feces. The stench is so powerful that it can cause vomiting and even temporary blindness. Coupled with sulfur, also stinky, which has exceptional clinging properties, you have a recipe for a long-lasting stink.

Side note: if you leave your beer out in the sun too long you may notice it becomes “skunky.” Ultraviolet light causes a chemical reaction with hops which yields a compound referred to as a “skunky thiol.” This thiol is similar to that found in skunks, and it’s the exact same compound as is found in cat urine.

How do skunks feel about their malodorous weapon? It appears they dislike it, and will avoid spraying each other except during mating season. Skunk babies, or kits, however, with their ability to spray before they even open their eyes, will spray each other in play.

After spraying, it can take up to two weeks for a skunk to replenish its oily noxious liquid, leaving it vulnerable during that time. Therefore, skunks only spray as a last resort, courteously warning their victims before wasting their precious weaponry. They’ll stomp their feet, scratch the ground, and hiss. Spotted skunks will even do a handstand to encourage you to leave them alone.

Despite my never seeing skunks, we do indeed have them here in Alabama. In fact, we have two species, the striped skunk, found in every state across the land, and the smaller, less common spotted skunk.

Like all our native critters, skunks play a vital role in the ecosystem. As well as acting as rodent control, skunks are members in good standing of the Scavenger Clean-up Crew. As opportunistic omnivores, skunks will eat yellow jacket larvae, garbage, and even venomous snakes. Not to mention, skunks are exceedingly cute.

Happy Valentines Day to the stinkiest little critters on the planet! May you find the love you’re looking for this winter and spring, and may your little ones keep their stink-bombing to a minimum.

If you enjoy my columns, you might enjoy my book, Box Turtles, Hooligans, and Love, Sweet Love, a collection of 70 of my columns from 2022-2023. It’s available on Amazon.