No longer are cities and suburbs just places for people to live. They have become great places for many animals, including skunks, to live. These animals come out at night and are known for their unique black and white stripes and strong smell. They have gotten used to living in the city and its surroundings. This guide talks about what it’s like to live in the city or the suburbs with these nighttime neighbours and how to get along with them.
Figuring Out How Skunks Act
To live with modern skunks without a problem, it’s important to know how they act:
- Nature at Night: Skunks are mostly active at night. Since they are most busy at night, they do their business when most people are shut inside.
- What they eat: Skunks are greedy omnivores. They eat many things, like bugs, small mammals, fruits, veggies, and even trash that people throw away. Because of these dietary habits, they like living in cities and suburbs because there are lots of food sources there.
- Burrowing and Denning: Skunks often hide under porches, decks, sheds, and other similar buildings, where they build dens to sleep and raise their young.
Trying to make coexistence peaceful
To live peacefully with urban skunks, you need to use a number of techniques, including:
- Skunk-Proof Your Property: If you’re worried about skunks making dens under your buildings, you might want to skunk-proof them. Check your property for places where skunks could make dens, like gaps under decks and sheds, and seal them off with hardware cloth or heavy-gauge wire mesh to keep them from doing so.
- Taking care of your lawn: Skunks may dig in fields and lawns to find bugs, grubs, and other food. Controlling pests will help lower the number of grubs in your yard, which are a main food source for skunks. Taking away this food source might make your house less appealing to them.
- Lights that turn on when something moves: Skunks are wary of quick movements and bright lights. Put motion-activated lights around your home to scare them away.
- Repellents: You can use skunk repellents that you can buy in stores on your land. Skunks don’t like the smells in these items, which can keep them from coming near.
- Animal-Proof Trash Cans: To keep skunks from digging through your trash, use animal-proof trash cans with lids that close tightly.
- Education: Make people in your neighbourhood more aware of the pros of living with skunks and other urban wildlife. Teaching people about the part these animals play in getting rid of pests can help them appreciate and understand them better.
- Professional Wildlife Removal: If you’re having a really tough time or a skunk problem that you can’t handle, you should talk to a professional wildlife removal service. They know how to look at your property and give you advice on how to remove it in a safe and gentle way.
How to Handle Skunk Encounters
Even if you try your best, you might sometimes run into skunks in your neighbourhood. It’s important to treat these animals with care and respect in these situations:
- Stay away from skunks. They’re not mean by nature, but they may spray if they feel threatened. Keep your distance and give them room to get away.
- Deodorization Methods: If a skunk sprays you, your pet, or your property, you can get rid of the smell in a number of ways at home, such as by mixing hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and liquid soap. There are also commercial skunk odour removers that you can buy.
- Professional Help: If you see a skunk that looks hurt or upset, you should call animal control or a wildlife rescue centre in your area for help. Do not try to get rid of the skunk by yourself.
In conclusion, if you want to live with urban skunks, you need to take precautions and have a respectful attitude toward these unique animals. You can get along with your neighbours who come out at night if you follow these rules. They may live in an urban or neighbourhood area like yours.
At Skunk Control Barrie, guarantees complete skunk removal using industry-standard methods that have been time-tested on numerous cases before and are approved by the federal and provincial governments.