Build Date: Sat May 18 08:10:10 2024 UTC
If you want a stable environment, you're already dead. And boring, to boot.
-- Mr. Bad
Skunk School -- Learn Why Not To Keep Skunks As Pets |
Animal Rampage |
There is an alarming trend in pet purchasing habits this fall. People inspired by the WWII film, "Life is Beautiful" -- the one with that annoying Italian guy -- are buying descented skunks by the millions.
Unassuming parents are procuring the cute and fuzzy skunk puppies for their children not realizing that they grow up to be wild pack animals that are intelligent, blood thirsty hunters. They are also vengeful, have a highly developed bird-call-like language, and cannot be properly disciplined with a spray bottle.
As a public service Spock Mountain Research Labs is posting this warning and guide to skunk behavior. It is our hope that this article will ward off more domestic skunk disasters.
When skunks are in the weanling stage, they are cute and moist, and children cannot resist them. They do not realize that these creatures grow up to have shark-like teeth and claws meant for separating flesh from vertebrae.
Skunk owners are often surprised to find that a skunk will pass up a perfectly good "skunk pan," and instead eliminate on their furniture, walls, or other surfaces. Descented skunks never forgive human beings for taking their stink power, and will constantly urinate throughout the home. This can lead to unsanitary living quarters for your children, and your little ones might even get a rhinovirus.
Skunks are also very picky eaters. When a skunk is deprived of its natural hunting pattern, it will be most happy with raw eggs, and uncooked meats. But, like spiders, skunks prefer to eat live prey.
In the wild, skunks work in packs of two or more, and they generally try to hunt near rivers or creeks where they can quickly subdue amphibians, which makes up the bulk of most skunks' diets. In fact, a team of two skunks can rip apart as many as 10 frogs per hour when feeding.
Skunk owners are often shocked by the skunk's penchant for inviting other wild animals into the household. Many a skunk owner has come home from work, or doing errands, to find that a bunch of raccoons, opossums, and skunks have raided the kitchen, and eaten all of the eggs, and other high calorie foodstuffs.
Whatever happens, never, ever, let a skunk outside without a proper restraining system. Skunks will sometimes pretend to be like cats, but at the first opportunity they will make a break for wild freedom, where they will join the other escaped skunks in the neighborhood and form gangs. And then all hell will break loose.
Once a skunk has escaped, it is nearly impossible to catch it.
Skunks have a ground speed of nearly 85 miles per hour, close to that of the cheetah. If startled, a group of skunks can bolt from a skunk hole at breathtaking speed, and will not be shy about defending their freedom with their teeth and claws when challenged. This makes them extremely dangerous to have in the yard.
Even when a skunk has been descented, it has the ability to project uric acid from its hindquarters. If cornered a descented skunk still has powerful pumping glands, and a pursuer may receive a brutal splash of skunk fluids. Skunk urine is not as disgusting as skunk spray, but it can still debilitate an adult human long enough for the skunk to make a hasty escape.
Skunks will have no compunction about destroying your other pets and livestock. When faced with surviving away from a source of fresh amphibians, skunks have been known to eat cats, dogs, and even horses. There are reports that packs of skunks have torn up entire hen houses, killing every hen, drinking all the blood and feasting on the eggs.
The only recourse a skunk owner has is to build skunk traps baited with chocolate. Chocolate is an irresistible substance to skunks, and it is also a a deadly poison to them. Skunk traps usually consist of a tin can with a Hershey's Chocolate Kiss on the bottom. The can is placed in a hole in the ground, similar in size to a gopher hole.
As the skunk rushes for the chocolate, its head will become lodged permanently inside the tin can. Slowly, blindly the skunk wanders around as the chocolate takes its toll. The skunk will cry out in its skunk "macaaw" as it stumbles. If it can be located in time, it can be destroyed with a shovel or a blunt instrument. This is the preferable way for a wild skunk to die.
It may seem cruel, but unless the skunk is bludgeoned it will walk endlessly as its digestive track freezes up and its blood hardens. And it may wander into town where adolescent boys may find it and slowly torture it by playing kick the can, or another miscreant game.
Perhaps the best way to defend one's property from escaped pet skunks is to get a Costa Rican spider monkey, the natural enemy of skunks. As the mongoose is able to to kill the deadly cobra, a spider monkey is slightly faster than the wily skunk, and able to avoid its sprays and razor bite.
T O P S T O R I E S
In 2010 Dr. Cheng-Huai Ruan discovered a way to cause a patient with an abnormal heartbeat to get back into a normal rhythm by sticking a finger up the patient's ass. (More...)
WKRP in Cincinnati aired from 1978 through 1982. Howard Hesseman played Dr. Johnny Fever, a DJ from Los Angeles who was fired from his previous job for saying the word "booger" on the air. In the show Hesseman would do some dialogue, introduce a song, and start the song. You'd hear a few notes, but never the whole song. (More...)
SF Hippies Can't Get Their Act Together
The annual 420 Hippie Hill event in Golden Gate Park, where large crowds of hippies, wannabe hippies, and hippie poseurs drape themselves in tie dye t-shirts and gather on a hill on 4/20 to smoke weed, was cancelled this year because the organizers couldn't get their act together. (More...)
Mozart to be inducted into the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame
Joining such hard-rocking inductees as Abba, Chet Atkins, Nat King Cole, and Neil Diamond, the Rock 'n Roll Hall of Fame is proud to induct Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. (More...)
Gary Busey definitely involved in a hit and run accident
Gary Busey was definitely involved in a hit-and-run accident, but won't face any charges because he's rich and famous. (More...)
Gary Busey allegedly involved in Malibu hit-and-run
"Sir! You hit my car! I need your information!" the woman yelled at Gary Busey driving a battered Volvo station wagon before he sped off. (More...)
C L A S S I C P I G D O G
It's not like I have a heroin problem, see. I'm just a self-indulgent brat who likes to live beyond her means. When I zip down to my corner Money Mart for a little cash-till-payday loan, I'm really not planning to spend it on drugs. I'll spend it on sushi. Seventy bucks of interest for a two-week $400 loan is perfectly reasonable, if you really need that hamachi. (More...)
It’s election night. My wife and I are holed-up in this hotel that my political party has rented out for the evening. Outside, people are being violently beaten for whom they voted for. Is this South Africa? Perhaps we’re in Haiti or some Southern state during the 60’s. Of all the places where this sort of thing happens, it’s mind-boggling that we are in Portland, Maine. (More...)
Still Up For the Party? America's Dance Floors Are Graying
Raving over 30 doesn't have to be embarassing anymore. (More...)
Songs Of Love And Special Things
Well, dear reader, there's no denying it: Spring has sprung. The air is pungent with the fertile aroma of Romance. And you know what goes with Romance, don't you? That's right, Lover, porn. And not just any porn, but the kind you can sing along to. (More...)
Patient Joab's scientifick editorial discusses aspect of the space-time-beer continuum never before processed by sub-bush-robot minds!!! Too fabulantastic to contempulate! (More...)
Vacationing from Somnambulant Narrow Realities
So about six months ago, I was chilling in Chang Mai, Thailand with ICBINJ, perursing the Bangkok Times over my banana pancake and Big Chang breakfast when I spotted this article reprinted from the LA Times. It was about some kooks from California (where else?) who were claiming to have been to the front lines in Afgahnistan in mid-December and had recorded the whole feat on their website. "Holy Fuck!" I thought, "Now That's web journalism. Who are these guys!?" (More...)