Strategies for catching skunk in the suburbs?

[Tin Soldier]

Your best bet is catching it in a Havahart, run a pressure washer and push mower at same time (should be plenty of cover noise), shoot it with your air rifle a couple times, wait a bit and then suit up, load it into a heavy leaf/debris bag. Then find a dumpster.

[zachomega]

You guys are killing me. I have no basement. I also have no lawnmower or pressure washer. I'm thinking at this point of just not messing with them. Too much hassle in my area to dispatch. The lady will have to deal with the occasional skunk smell.

She is currently home complaining about the dead skunk smell. We are deciding whether to bury it or move it to the fence line for the possums.

-Zach

[Pilot321]

I would never recommend a suppressed air rifle out the back window. Too irresponsible and may be against the law in your area. So I would never, ever even consider that notion.

[gghbi]

You guys are killing me. I have no basement. I also have no lawnmower or pressure washer. I'm thinking at this point of just not messing with them. Too much hassle in my area to dispatch. The lady will have to deal with the occasional skunk smell.

She is currently home complaining about the dead skunk smell. We are deciding whether to bury it or move it to the fence line for the possums.

-Zach

Bury it, the sooner the better, especially in this heat...

If other critters want it, they can dig it out, so go plenty deep.

[zachomega]

Bury it, the sooner the better, especially in this heat...

If other critters want it, they can dig it out, so go plenty deep.

Yep. She buried it and put a plant on top. I'm stuck at work. Otherwise I'd have done it.

-Zach

[wis bang]

plenty of skunks in Levittown, we often get a whiff walking the dogs before bed...glad we don't have a fence and need to walk them on leashes so no skunked dogs, just wrenched shoulders from the lunges at the cottontails

[RockIsland]

My buddy caught one in a box trap behind his house when we were like 16.

His two neighbors had their house windows open and weren't happy. I don't recommend trapping one. If you can't shoot them, leave them alone. They're actually pretty friendly and harmless.

If they're spraying, you might as well trap them but they will spray whole a lot more.

[frankski]

A buddy in Levittown had a multi-skunk problem a few years ago because of a neighbor with cat food left outside.

His solution, which I only report as successful, but have no opinion as to legality, was as follows.

Wire cage box trap, appropriately sized. Drop open bottom cardboard box over trapped skunk in trap. Run hose from vehicle exhaust to box. Ten minutes to dead, non spraying skunk. Dispose in trash bags at the curb.

He did this for several skunks until the herd was cleared out. He saved mucho bucks over having a pest control service remove the skunks.

[Gunplummer]

franski--Sounds like it would work. I used to get them in my leg hold traps all the time. I shot them and everyone sprayed. The only one that did not got in a mink set and drowned. I normally just leave them alone, but I never lived in the city.

[zachomega]

plenty of skunks in Levittown, we often get a whiff walking the dogs before bed...glad we don't have a fence and need to walk them on leashes so no skunked dogs, just wrenched shoulders from the lunges at the cottontails

I always walk the pup on a leash. She'd get into trouble or get skunked otherwise.

And it is not just Levittown. Bucks on the whole is skunk county.

-Zach