I often make late-night walks down the street to the convenience store. Due to my work/sleep schedule, I can pretty much only do this late at night.
Unfortunately, this seems to be the same time that the local skunks begin prowling around the undeveloped lot between my home and the convenience store. Luckily, they’ve not yet gotten close enough to be a threat, but I always worry that one night I won’t be so lucky, and I’ll accidentally sneak up on one and spook it into spraying me.
I’ve looked online, and most of the articles I can find on the subject are about how to keep skunks from occupying your property in the first place. Which is great, but I don’t own the property they’re hanging out in, so I can’t do much about that. I couldn’t find many articles about skunk encounters that offer much advise beyond “stay away, dummy”. Which I obviously plan to do, but life doesn’t always go according to plan.
I live in the city, so it’s actually kinda weird that there are skunks this close to a populated area. The city life has prevented me from having a lot of experiences with skunks, and honestly I want to keep it that way. But does anybody have any advice on how to help ensure that skunks stay away while walking?
So you’re asking how to encourage them to avoid you? Mostly, as you implied, you don’t want to suprise them. When you’re in the area, try and stay in the open, and if you can, make a bit of noise like whistling or that. They’ll naturally want to stay away where possible.
This has been my approach so far. I try to walk with a particularly heavy footfall past that area, so that hopefully my presence is known in advance. So far, nothing’s gotten close enough to be a concern. I’ve sometimes looked back and seen them crossing the street some distance behind me so I know they’re active at the time, so maybe they are hearing me and keeping a distance.