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Posted on 10/06/2025 2:23:20 AM PDT by Hot Tabasco
Yesterday evening I killed a skunk in my backyard and left it to be picked up this morning. I set my trail camera out because when I killed a skunk previously, it was gone by morning and I was hoping it would happen again.
Sure enough, it was gone but no photos on the camera. There was a brief blur but nothing else.
This is a mystery to me and the only thing I can think of is that an owl might have swooped in and snatched it up.
Any thoughts? I know the camera was working because later last night it captured my neighbor letting out her dog.
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AI LIES
Well, actually I was thinking of “Dead skunk in the middle of the lawn”, but, it could also be “Dead skunk in the middle of the yard” (2 letters changed). :-)
A while back I found a dead rat in the middle of my lawn, and also a partial deer leg. Never a skunk, though, thank goodness, but once I found a live one hiding under my car. It just trotted away once it realized I was there.
I didn’t know that. Is it a territorial thing?
Mostly territorial, I think.
Kits (young beavers) are reported to be killed frequently if a pond or lake is at carrying capacity.
I suspect beavers are cannibals because I trapped hundred of muskrats when in the 1960’s before the anti-trapping craze.
Muskrats are much like small beavers, but they don’t build dams. They routinely cannibalize muskrat carcasses. I used the carcasses as bait in some cases, and caught more muskrats than other animals in those sets.
Most rodents are omnivores. I do not know for certain about beavers, whose digestive system might be a bit more specialized.
Possums are great, practically disease free and they eat the dead. I had a horrible stench in my house, I paid for people to crawl under my house. They found nothing, someone suggested opening the crawl space and making another on the opposite side. In one day the smell was gone, and now I have possums around my yard. They actually eat and kill mice and rats.
“”In one day the smell was gone, and now I have possums around my yard. They actually eat and kill mice and rats.””
They will eat literally anything. I have a rather ugly male possum (I call him Ballz) that shows up on my game cam hanging around my compost pile every night.
I left my office in the Jersey Meadowlands a bit after hours, the parking lot was quiet. While we had squirrels, muskrat and rabbits, it was unusual to see a cat.
It was a little bigger than a cat. It moved funny. While cats come in black and white, these are usually blotches. Had never seen a stripe before, a white stripe.
It must have known I was there, but I guess it knew I wasn’t a threat. It continued on its appointed rounds.
Last summer, neighbors were leaving food out for a friendly cat. Lots of food. More than it could eat. At least a couple of skunks added our building to their evening rounds. I surprised one as much as it startled me. I think he stood on his front paws, I wanted no part of this. Was probably within range, but backing away worked this time. After that, I made a lot of noise when I approached that area.
Be careful with bats though. I think I read they are the most common transmitter of rabies. And often people don’t feel the bite.
No he’s in love with a cat
:)
Yep. I’m quite fond of coons and possums. Both visit my back porch frequently.
My family spent more on dog food for raccoons than a lifetime of German Shepherds, and I got to know them well as a kid. There was one mother, something happened to her baby and it ended up neurologically all screwed up, and for a couple of years, through the next year’s litter, she apparently was sleeping in some den with it, and escorting it to our deck each night, and I ended up setting up the little buffet of sardines and dog food in a corner by the sliding glass door, and mom would make sure each night it got there, and she would let it have all that to itself, and keep all the others away.
It was just an incredible level of care and loyalty there, where you will even see humans dump family in nursing homes and facilities. But not that girl.
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