Trapping Skunks? Cover the Trap

The best tip ever for anyone who is considering trapping a skunk is to make sure the trap is covered.

This week’s blog is that simple: Cover the trap.

How you cover a trap is completely subjective and can be accomplished in any number of ways. You could:

Use cardboard
Use a blanket or towel
Use a trap or piece of it
Tape the sides

Really, any old way will work and it doesn’t have to be expensive or too arts-and-crafty.

If expense is no option and you know your target is a skunk, buy a non-wire/non-see-through trap like a tube trap, like the green one in the picture below. You can click on the picture to go to a video on specific skunk traps.

But, simply covering the trap before you start trapping is, by far, the easiest way to get you prepared for what you’ll do when you capture a skunk.

Why Cover a Skunk Trap?

Skunks spray as a last resort when they feel that they are being attacked. They use mostly visual clues to perceive danger. So, a human coming at them while they are in a trap with quick movements could cause them to spray. The trick is to keep them from spraying.

When a skunk is covered they can’t see a threat. If they don’t perceive a threat and are in a closed-in environment, the odds of them spraying are greatly diminished. In fact, a covered skunk can be moved around, put in a vehicle, and let out without any issues.

Seeing is believing right?

This video shows how Ryan easily gets a skunk that was trapped ready for transport and another trap placed. The skunk never sees him, so there is no problem.

Uncovered Skunk Traps Are Challenging

Getting an uncovered trap with a skunk in it isn’t too hard, but the risk of it spraying goes up. One also needs to be patient and comfortable around skunks to get the trap covered.

When trapping skunks we always cover the traps. But, we’ll occasionally catch a skunk when we weren’t expecting one at all. Oops. In those cases, dealing with the skunk is more of a challenge. Here is a video which shows how that is handled.