Great, another fun thing - SKUNK

[ShadowsPapa]

Don't let the ads fool you. They aren't coon traps. They are "anything that likes your bait" traps.
And they are not "dog proof". Dog resistant, perhaps, but not dog proof. Anything that can get a paw or foot or hand in there and nudge that loop will get caught - anything. They don't have to lift or pull, simply bump it aside.
OK, end of the false advertising rant.
Those so-called "DP" traps........... who knew that skunks like marshmallows? I didn't. I knew coons loved them.
So I go out to check my traps this morning, I place 2 of them out - one on the south side of my shop where they like to come out of the woods and get into the stuff under the lean-to of my shop and then up to the garage, then the house where they tear things up and crap all over right next to the doors and foundation. Coon crap everywhere, stuff ripped apart by my shop.

Went out at 6:30 this morning to check traps. I for some reason tend to sneak around my shop to see if there's anything in the one 4 feet from the south wall of my shop and boy am I glad I do that. As I walked around a car I'm parting out, and just around the corner of the shop to see if there was anything in that trop, I spied nice black fur. But it wasn't all black. Two white stripes running down its back. Thankfully it was ignoring me and trying instead to free itself from the trap. No smell, yeah! It wasn't yet feeling defensive.
Back to the house for my gun. Told my wife and she pleaded with me to stay WAAAY back and aim well.
I did. First shot from 15 or 20 feet away clean head shot (they must be soft headed as, well, I knew it was a hit from where I was, I won't get gross). Wasn't easy as he kept moving around trying to free himself, he was a moving target.
It went down but shivered a bit.
No smell, a second shot to be really really sure.
No smell (yet)
My wife needed my help cleaning up the kitchen and sunroom for her company today and I figured I would deal with skunk later.
Damn. Walked out the door and SKUNK SMELL in the air. So apparently after death, they relax all muscles??

Ideas how to get that dead critter out of the DP trap and not get that smell all over ME???? And I know I'll have to "de-scent" the trap and the ground all around where the trap was. Man, my shop is gonna STINK for days.

Is there any way to release the skunk, not get stinky in the process, and somehow take care of the scent around the corner of my shop?
I'm glad I'm not a bad shot with a 22. A miss and he'd for sure have taken aim himself.

Skunks like marshmallows, skunks can easily trigger a DP trap.

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[Hootbro]

I use to set "rabbit" traps when I was a teenager. I would catch skunk, possum, racoon and the occasional feral cat before I would get my rabbit. Goes with the territory of using live traps.

 

[Alfonz]

Sorry for your stinky situation. Now I know to throw marshmallows in yards of people who have offended me.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Sorry for your stinky situation. Now I know to throw marshmallows in yards of people who have offended me.

I can't get enough laughing likes to show up for you on that one.
I think that one wins the whole forum today, if not the internet.

I use to set "rabbit" traps when I was a teenager. I would catch skunk, possum, racoon and the occasional feral cat before I would get my rabbit. Goes with the territory of using live traps.

Yeah, it was so close to my shop that it really stinks bad in there - the wind is from the SE today blowing the stink right to the shop. I let it lay for the day hoping the smell would blow away with all the wind. No such luck. So I held my breath and released his foot from the trap and use a long shovel to carry him into the woods as far as I could stand walking and disposed of him.
A shame, they are so cute.

 

[Gatorized]

How do you get any animal out of that trap alive without getting attacked? I don’t know that I’d want to mess with a raccoon or even a squirrel in a trap like that, let alone a skunk. Or is the intent to kill them after trapping them?

 

[ShadowsPapa]

How do you get any animal out of that trap alive without getting attacked? I don’t know that I’d want to mess with a raccoon or even a squirrel in a trap like that, let alone a skunk. Or is the intent to kill them after trapping them?

`Hav-a-hart traps are made to trap then release.
DP traps are made to catch then kill.

I don't think it's just Iowa, but the 'coon population has exploded lately and they are so numerous that they causing problems.
A cousin came home one evening and found 15 of them in his front yard tearing things up and crapping all over.

I tried the catch and relocate method a couple of years back. They destroyed traps time after time, and when they didn't get out, it was a lot of fun taking a live 'coon in a trap and hauling it away and then opening the trap to release it elsewhere.

 

[Lunentucker]

Ahhhh, the things I have learned from making these mistakes and paying dearly.

Had one in the yard Friday night. NW of the house at about 80 yards.
I checked the weather app and looked at the forecast wind directions for the next three days.
SW... Hell Yeah!!
Grabbed the CZ455 in 17 HMR and sent the remedy to his striped face.
WHACK! Quiver... Done.

The next morning at 8 there were 7 buzzards standing around him.
They didn't seem to think the roast was done quite yet, so the picking didn't start until around noon, after the sun had baked him up a bit more.

By dusk it was all gone.

Mowed the grass this morning and after Saturday's downpours, like it never happened. Not a trace.
I've done it wrong a few times. This way is much better.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Ahhhh, the things I have learned from making these mistakes and paying dearly.

Had one in the yard Friday night. NW of the house at about 80 yards.
I checked the weather app and looked at the forecast wind directions for the next three days.
SW... Hell Yeah!!
Grabbed the CZ455 in 17 HMR and sent the remedy to his striped face.
WHACK! Quiver... Done.

The next morning at 8 there were 7 buzzards standing around him.
They didn't seem to think the roast was done quite yet, so the picking didn't start until around noon, after the sun had baked him up a bit more.

By dusk it was all gone.

Mowed the grass this morning and after Saturday's downpours, like it never happened. Not a trace.
I've done it wrong a few times. This way is much better.

It was just about a week or so ago that I finally stopped smelling any trace at all of him. It's all gone now.

5 coons so far caught and dispatched.

 

[Lunentucker]

It was just about a week or so ago that I finally stopped smelling any trace at all of him. It's all gone now.

5 coons so far caught and dispatched.

Another boring story.
Some years ago I was talking with a fellow who has a place on the Chesapeake Bay. He runs oyster beds and farms and semi-professionally guides waterfowl hunts.

The oysters were dying off and the outlook was bleak. This was some years previous to my some years ago with him.
The cause was found to be e coli in high concentrations in the creeks that fed into the area of the bay, and thus into the oyster beds.
The assumption was that some humans somewhere were illegally dumping raw sewage, or perhaps there was a leak or a flood undetected.

Further analysis yielded a different culprit.
Raccoons. Thousands of them.
They were aggressively hunted and trapped and soon the e coli diminished and the oyster beds were once again thriving.
They're cute, and I kill every one that I can.
They'll destroy a turkey nest in a heartbeat.

 

[ShadowsPapa]

Another boring story.
Some years ago I was talking with a fellow who has a place on the Chesapeake Bay. He runs oyster beds and farms and semi-professionally guides waterfowl hunts.

The oysters were dying off and the outlook was bleak. This was some years previous to my some years ago with him.
The cause was found to be e coli in high concentrations in the creeks that fed into the area of the bay, and thus into the oyster beds.
The assumption was that some humans somewhere were illegally dumping raw sewage, or perhaps there was a leak or a flood undetected.

Further analysis yielded a different culprit.
Raccoons. Thousands of them.
They were aggressively hunted and trapped and soon the e coli diminished and the oyster beds were once again thriving.
They're cute, and I kill every one that I can.
They'll destroy a turkey nest in a heartbeat.

I don't mind them destroying turkey nests. Turkeys are one of the main reasons pheasants have totally disappeared from our area. When we moved here you could hear them almost daily, all around. It was common. you even saw them now and then.
I asked a hunter friend who raised dogs what happened to all the pheasants (he used to hunt our area). He asked if we'd been seeing a lot of turkeys. Yeah. We have.
He said turkeys will destroy pheasant nests.
Used to hear coyote a lot, too - almost nightly sometimes. One neighbor said he'd see them chasing deer through his yard. Now it's rare. The balance of nature out here has really shifted.
Coons everywhere, possum road kill is common, seeing rabbits is rare (that's ok, though)
The raccoon population has exploded around here. The house and garage were surrounded by their crap.
Been having to dispatch sparrows, too. They chase away and kill wrens, they kick bluebirds out of their nests and take over. They aren't native and like pythons in Florida, they are invasive, not native to US.

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