The Great Skunk Rescue!

      Life is really strange. If someone had told me on Monday that on Tuesday morning at 7 a.m., I would be climbing into a hazmat suit and hardhat and signing a waiver to a local oil company promising not to sue them if I got injured, I would've said you were crazy. No way could such a thing happen!

     But it did.

     I've been helping the good folks at a local oil drilling site trap and neuter some feral cats. They set the traps at a location far up a dirt road, drop the cats off at a local vet; then I do the pick up and return the next morning. Only this particular morning, they had caught a skunk!  And not one of these big burly oil field guys wanted anything to do with such a harrowing mission, so they called me to come deal with the situation.

      Now I've trapped skunks before, and it's no fun. My heart always sinks a little when I peek under the towel covering the trap and see that little black and white critter with its tail up, getting ready to spray. It does stink, no two ways about it.

      The unfortunate part of this particular situation was one, whomever set the trap had not covered it with a towel (this is SO important because it keeps the cat/raccoon/skunk/whatever from being so frightened it injures itself) and two, they'd set the trap in a shed with only one door, so conceivably the skunk and I would be racing each other for a single exit. 

      Before I could undertake this hazardous task, however, I had to put on the helmet and the hazmat suit and sign the waiver. Actually the biggest danger was that I would trip and break my neck because the suit was designed for someone about a foot taller than I am and I kept stepping on the pant legs. Anyway, three of us drove out to this shed and there was the poor skunk, a young skunk from the looks of him, rattling around in the trap. I went in, threw the tarp I keep in my car over the trap, lifted the slider and ran back outside. The skunk, I was told, emerged later and scurried off into the woods.

      I was also told that one of the oil workers who observed all this remarked in amazement, "She just walked right in. She wasn't scared at all."  Wow, wish I could always impress people this easily!

      So the skunk was freed, the trapper was only slightly 'skunkified', and all ended happily.

      However, I must add there are two traps out at the same site tonight and I will be really, really happy if tomorrow morning I don't get a call that they've caught another skunk!