This is so neat! Skunk smell is such an iconic, well known, horrendous animal smell in North America. I’ve never considered someone would not know what it smells like!
Closer to rotten egg than fish but not quite. It’s caused by sulfur compounds similar to those in weed and bad beer as suggested (or beer that’s bottled in clear or green glass and left in the sun - brown and cobalt glass block the UV that causes the compounds to form) but there’s a wider “pallette” of odors in much higher concentration.
Up close and personal? I can’t even begin to describe it. It’s not even so much a smell as it feels like acid burning your nostrils and eyes and simultaneously stomach churning so you want to gag or vomit until it is cleaned off. I would rather fall face first in a fresh cow pie than be sprayed by a skunk again.
Quite literally. Human and other mammal scent receptors are very sensitive to thiols, sulfur compounds that are frequently found in sources of danger, like rotting corpses, feces, and toxic gas. Skunks evolved their spray to take advantage of this with high concentrations of thiols and compounds that help to adhere to things. It’s like an olfactory flashbang.
My husky got sprayed once on a late night walk. She was so confused – she just wanted to be friends!
She got two jets: one in the facial area and another on her rump. The stuff near her face came out relatively quickly (think a timeline of months), whereas the spray on her butt really got the chance to soak in to her double coat. It would still smell ~5 years later if she got wet, just absurd staying power.
It did eventually fade or, at the very least, became less distinguishable from the general smell of wet dog
Aside from their defense response, are skunks generally chill animals? I never thought about it but I wonder how well they get along with humans if domesticated (or at least, raised in captivity).
Anytime I see one it is just bopping around yards at 2 AM and seems pretty chill unless a loud noise spooks it and it vanishes. I wouldnt want to accidentally corner one near a fence though, Ive heard they are liberal with their spray
You can get the spray glands surgically removed and after that they’re somewhere between a cat and a ferret. I’ve always wanted one, but they’re illegal here on account of being scavengers.
No way in frigid hell would I let my cats near a raccoon. Fuck the fuck no. They’ve got rabies and all other manner of nasty communicable diseases. Don’t care what sub it is, this is negligent.
These are allegedly strays all coming in off the same street. Cat food is probably better for this raccoon than garbage, and it’s nice to see a human presumably offering a safe alternative and looking out for the wildlife IMHO. Those potential diseases are at least somewhat our fault.
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