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Old 20-07-2003, 04:42 PM
OhSojourner
 
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Default What to do with a skunk in a live trap?

Evil One wrote:

"theoneflasehaddock" wrote in message
om...
H Hornblower wrote in message

...
I have disposed of a couple of nocturnal coons with a big
Havahart trap. I live in the city , but by a railroad track with a
variety of wildlife. I'd never thought about what I'd do if I caught

a
skunk in the thing until I saw one in the yard one morning. What a
mess that could be.


I had one of those idiotic traps. I say idiotic since only an idiotic animal
can be caught in it. But, I did actually catch a skunk and what I did was
carefully and I do mean carefully, insert the trap into a contractors
plastic bag. These are big suckers and made from something like 4 or 5 mil.
plastic. I did the insertion from the rear I should add. I'm sure this will
bring copious amounts of ribald comment, but it is important to know.

I then moved the trap to an area outside of my garden and set the little
sucker free. He/she/it seemed happy enough to get away so I didn't suffer
any long lasting memories of the encounter.


Perhaps the trap could be fashioned so that the bag could be closed over it
from a distance (in lieu of the original poster's fear of what might go wrong).
How that would work: I'm presuming the contractors' bags have a diameter at
least big enough to contain the length of a skunk-sized trap; so take some
wire, cable, or even stiff plastic and loosely tape it around the edges of the
bag to make a "hula hoop" or croquet hoop type structure. Place the bag
"inside" the trap but keep the bag open, with the hoop on the ground,
surrounding the trap. Attach string or wire to the far side of the hoop and
clip or weight the fore portion to the ground so that it can be pulled forward
sort of like the way a mousetrap works (and the bag drawn over the trap) from a
distance. Test your setup first to see that it works smoothly. Inventive
persons can add variations on how this is done, but you get the idea.