| MASTER GARDENERS | EVENTS | SEASONAL TOPICS | GET ANSWERS HOME |
| GARDENING BASICS | FRUIT, VEGETABLES & HERBS | TREES, SHRUBS & VINES | LAWN & TURF | HERBACEOUS ORNAMENTALS | INSECTS, DISEASES & WEEDS |
WILDLIFE IN THE GARDEN |
PLANT YOUR LANDSCAPE |
| HOME: WILDLIFE IN THE GARDEN: MAMMALS: SKUNKS |
Helping Beneficial Insects Lady beetles Damsel bug Green lacewings Hover(syrphid) flies Minute pirate bugs Parasitic wasps Predacious ground beetles Spiders Tachinid flies Hosting songbirds in your garden Grow natives West Nile virus Deer Marmots Rabbits Raccoons Skunks Voles Snakes Garter snakes Gopher snakes Western rattlesnakes |
Slow-moving, mild-mannered, and severely near-sighted, skunks are nocturnal and nomadic. When they visit your yard, they're either looking for food or shelter or simply passing through. Mice, grasshoppers, beetles, crickets and other insects are all important components of the skunk diet. Skunks will also eat eggs, berries, carrion, snakes, frogs, small birds, rats, rabbits, and other small mammals and-of course-garbage and pet food. To a skunk, the dark, quiet, and often protected areas under decks, porches, and sheds all look like good places to bunk for the near term. Abandoned woodchuck or fox burrows, rocky crevasses, culverts, hollow logs, and lumber piles make suitable dens as well. Skunks typically bear one litter a year of two to 10 young. The young are born in May or June and are on their own by fall. The normal home range of a skunk is less than 2 square miles, although breeding males may travel up to 5 miles each night. Benefits and conflicts Skunks destroy large numbers of garden pests and even eat black widow spiders. But they can burrow under porches, decks, and foundations and slip inside buildings through openings as small as 3-4 inches. Loose in the vegetable garden, they'll waddle over to the sweet corn and eat the lowermost ears. Searching for grubs near the surface of wet lawns, they'll dig 3- to 4-inch-wide cone-shaped holes or upturn small patches of turf. Most annoying of all, when threatened they'll spray to distances of 15 feet or beyond. (To their credit, they give fair warning by arching their backs, raising their tails, stamping their feet, and shuffling backwards.) Uncommonly, skunks also carry rabies. Strategies for coexistence and control Habitat modification: You can minimize skunk-related problems by:
Fencing: Fortunately, skunks aren't skilled at climbing and a fence will normally deter them. They are however, exceedingly skilled at digging, so you'll need a 2-inch wire mesh fence that's not only 3 feet high but that extends 6-12 inches below ground and another 6-12 inches bent outward at a right angle.
|
top