BBC: Animal Story
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By J M L in General Published: Thursday, 19 June 08 - 10:38 AM (GMT -05:00) Last Updated: Saturday, 21 June 08 - 01:59 PM (GMT -05:00) |
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I would write about my two small cute loyal white lap dogs but I don't want to bore you with all my silliness about them.
I will tell you about "Cadillac Skunk" instead, a story with elements of horror, mystery, a shocking discovery, sadness and laughter.
Cadillac Skunk was discovered in my driveway one night when I was getting home and out of the car alone in pitch darkness. I had opened the car door and heard something very very close by on my side of the car.
When I figured out where and what I saw, especially the white stripe -- I was horrified!
How was I going to get out of the car and into the house?
So I sat there observing him as he munched down various nibbly bits in the yard. Skunks are very slow moving.
MY! He was ENORMOUS! I would say he was at least 36 inches long and looked like he could have weighted 40-60 pounds.
So he got named Cadillac because he was so enormous, just like the gas guzzling car, and he was in our driveway.
To make sure I had the details correct, I called the state extention service just to ask about skunks in general before I went off finding other information. After all, his size was unbelievable.
The man told me that there are some male skunks that can be that large and that it was not unusual.
Off and on, Cadillac made an appearance which meant he lived close by but that always remained a mystery location.
If we did not see him, we would notice he or a friend had been around.
Evidence are these cone like impressions in the ground when they stick their nose in and hunt for bugs. Since he was so large, so were the cone impressions.
Skunks will live in ground burrows often times moving in when the woodchucks left, skunks like to take over others living space.
I also found out that skunks eat mice and other creatures that can do garden damage so they really should be your friend.
They also will travel at night a few miles for a food search.
Now, years went by, and Cadillac roamed our property nightly. It got to the point, he knew who we were. So we did not bother him at all (for fear of being sprayed!).
One year, we had a very warm winter. so warm, that the hibernating animals got confused to the time and were out and about doing their spring thing although it was mid winter. Next we get cold weather and a few huge and fast snowstorms which dumped feet of snow on the ground. Well, Cadillac was lost when the first snowstorm happened, the ground covered in white, but we did not know that till all the snow started to melt on the following warmer days. For there in the former area of a huge 8-12 foot snowbank at the end of our driveway, was once frozen Cadillac. Evidently, he was out when they were plowing and got plowed into the snowbank. He either died from being struck or suffocated being encapsulated in the snow. (The Shocking Discovery! and sadness.)
So Cadillac, although a night nomad, taught me all the good things about skunks, which I never knew before.
Living in the country, we see the most interesting things in our yard from time to time including Jimmy the Skunk (neighbor named him after a Thornton W. Burgess book), and our Skunk Spy Events, one not ending too pleasantly with "Beady Eyed Skunk". ;-( (now we laugh!)
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