Love Stinks

Frisky skunks funk up Philly this Feb.

Love is in the air! Along with the pungent perfume of polecat attraction. 🦨💨✨ This month marks the start of skunk mating season – a prime time for sightings and encounters with one of the most misunderstood and unfairly maligned members of our local wildlife community. While their smell may make headlines, skunks have fascinating behaviors, surprising benefits for our ecosystem, and an essential role in keeping things balanced.

February is an exciting time for the skunks in our area, as the male “bucks” begin roaming far beyond their usual territories in search of a lovely “doe” for his partner. You might notice an increase in that distinctive skunk smell wafting through the air. Unfortunately, much of that acrid odor is, shall we say, released on vehicular impact. ☹ Amorous skunks are famously slow, near-sighted, and oblivious to traffic.

But sometimes that burnt rubber/bad cabbage smell on the wind is pure romance! Flirty females will spray to release pheromones to announce their availability. These potent, musky signals play a role in the courtship process, essentially serving as irresistibly aromatic natural love letters.

Males seek out these scent trails all day and night in the hopes of getting lucky. When they do, it’s a wham-bam-thank-you-ma’am sort of engagement. Males do not stick around, and are in fact immediately onto the next encounter. In a typical breeding season, a buck hooks up with 2 to 5 does, who give birth to 4 – 7 kits in early spring.

Female skunks are the ultimate single moms. They prepare their own dens, find their own food, keep their offspring safe, and teach them essential survival skills like foraging and self-defense. By late summer, the kits are ready to venture out on their own, though some may stick close to their mother through the fall before becoming fully independent. These young adults will be ready to start families of their own, come February again.

Philly’s skunk populations are stable and healthy, with anywhere from 2 to 50 per square mile, depending on food and habitat availability. Despite their reclusive nature, skunks are comfortable in urban environments, where they enjoy a daily banquet of delicious bugs, larvae, snakes, and rodents.

Indeed, skunks are nature’s sneaky exterminators, hunting all matter of vermin from our spaces — silently, under the cover of darkness. They’ll also clean up fallen fruit, winter gardens, even animal carcasses, greatly reducing the spread of pests, disease, and contamination. Yet people still view them with fear and disgust.

Skunks, as everyone knows, are chemical warfare specialists. They have designated glands under their tails that can accurately spray a targeted scent stream up to ten feet. Of course they aim for the face, so the noxious substance gets up into their attacker’s eyes and sinuses, causing extreme burning and nausea.

Even worse, the oily, sulfur-based compound soaks into fur, hair, skin, clothing — anything porous absorbs its violently repellent odor that requires repeated full-scale interventions to remove. If left untreated, skunk scent can last for weeks, even months. It sometimes comes roaring back after seemingly disappearing. 😮 The good news is, getting skunked is not as easy as it looks.

True Story: skunks only deploy their stinky secret weapon as an absolute last resort. They’d much rather waddle away from danger or give a warning dance than use up their precious defenses, which can take ten days to replenish (leaving them vulnerable to predators). And skunks aren’t immune to their own spray, either – it can take them down too if the wind blows it back in their direction.

Trust, neither you nor the skunk wants to set off its foul ordnance! A little understanding can go a long way in reducing conflicts and appreciating these fascinating animals for what they bring to our natural world.

SKUNK SMARTS 🦨🧠 Seeing (or smelling) a skunk this time of year isn’t unusual, but you can take steps to avoid an unpleasant encounter. Here’s how:

1. Seal Off Attractants: Skunks are opportunistic feeders, so secure trash cans, compost bins, and pet food to keep them from setting up shop.
2. Prevent Hiding Spots: Block off spaces under porches, decks, and sheds where skunks might want to den.
3. Skunk-Proof Your Night Walks: If you have pets, keep them leashed and avoid letting them roam outside unattended at night.
4. Be Loud and Proud: Skunks are shy by nature. If you spot one at a distance, make noise or stomp to gently encourage it to move along. Close encounter? Avert your eyes and back away!

And if you’re unlucky enough to find yourself on the receiving end of a skunk spray? 🚫🍅 Skip the old tomato juice trick and reach for a mix of hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap—it’s much more effective! 🫧 PRO TIP: Wear gloves and protective eyewear.

Keep It Wild  Skunks are more than their smell. They’re skilled pest managers, quirky neighbors, and vital players in our local ecosystem. Instead of fearing them, we can learn to appreciate their role and coexist peacefully. Even their infamous odor has a purpose—it’s one of nature’s most creative defenses, helping these gentle creatures thrive.

Next time you catch a whiff of skunk in the February chill, take a moment to marvel at their adaptability, their ecological benefits, and yes, their bold, smelly love songs to the world. They may not bring flowers and chocolates to the party, but skunks are a special part of our untamed community.

Fast Fun Facts about Skunks

1. The striped skunk is a stout and short-limbed mammal (4 to 10 lbs), about the size of a Shih Tzu or Jack Russell terrier, with a lifespan of about 5 years in the wild, 10 in captivity.
2. The scientific name for skunk, Mephitis mephitis, literally means “bad odor.”  Popular slang includes polecat, fart squirrel, and the French Canadian enfant du diable or “child of the devil.”
3. Male skunks are called bucks, females are does, and their babies are known as kits. A group of skunks is called a surfeit, a stench, or a scold.
4. Skunks are placid and sluggish, with a top speed of just 10 mph. They can swim if they have to but are poor climbers.
5. A skunk’s stripes differ between individuals, with unique patterns of black and white including all-white and all-black coat variations (and even some brown and cream mutations occasionally).
6. While skunks don’t fully hibernate, they may enter a slowed metabolic state of “torpor” in winter, staying in dens for extended periods and surviving off fat reserves.
7. Skunks can emit musk at eight days old; they start spraying at about a month old, and after about three months of practice they’re able to aim accurately.
8. A skunk’s number one predator is the great horned owl, which is immune to their spray as they have no sense of smell (also they hunt from above, out of the range of stinging chemicals).
9. Skunks, like opossum and mongoose, are immune to snake venom.
10. You can tell if a skunk has been digging in your yard by the appearance of little, shallow holes surrounded by a 3 to 4 inch ring of loosened soil. These holes are nose impressions made as they root around for grubs, worms, and their favorite treat: ground hornets!
11. Skunks are generally loners but may den together in the winter for warmth, especially the females. Sometimes they’ll even bunk with other species like rabbits and groundhogs.
12. Skunks were once classified as part of the weasel family but in 1997 genetic testing revealed they were their own family, which now includes 12 different species across the Americas and two species of stink badgers in Southeast Asia.
13. To many indigenous people, skunks were admired for their bravery. Lakota war chiefs sometimes lined the soles of their moccasins with skunk skin, and Comanche warriors would often attach a tail to each heel.
14. Skunk spray has been compared to tear gas with good reason. Both are “lachrymators” – chemical substances that irritate eyes and nose, causing tears, redness, inflammation, mucus production, gagging, and even vomiting.
15. Pennsylvania is home to two skunk species: our common striped or hooded skunk and the rare spotted skunk, which is smaller and not striped but polka-dotted! These shy, retiring cuties live in remote, wooded habitats – they’d be extremely out of place in our area.

NOTE: Skunks can carry rabies without exhibiting any signs of the disease – that is, they can be unaffected but still contagious to us and our pets. Never touch a skunk, even babies pose a significant risk. If you see a skunk in distress, report to one (or all) of the following:

• Metro Wildlife Center phillywildlife.org | 267-416-9453
• Schuylkill Center Wildlife Clinic  Schuylkillcewnter.org | 215-853-6271
• PA Game Commission pa.gov/pgc | 1-833-PGC-WILD

Thoughts? Comments? Please leave them below. If you enjoyed this Local wildlife feature, please check out last month’s on the growing population of coyotes in Philadelphia and other cities across the country.