How not to deal with a baby skunk

Take it for a long drive across town

I’m on my cellphone, out on the lawn. If there were a special punctuation mark indicating extreme incredulity, I’d be using it liberally here.

“Uh huh. I see. So, I sneak up on it, throw a blanket over it, and then somehow get it into my car then drive it to you across town? Do I have that correct?”

I did. I had called Wildlife Rescue. The course of action they’d suggested was … well, I found myself looking over my shoulder for the hidden camera crew. Here’s why: One glorious summer day we heard a reedy whine coming from the old compost pit at the deepest, darkest corner of the property.

It sounded indignant and ever-so kittenish. We pushed back shrubs and trees to see what it was. Black, white and mightily annoyed, it was a skunk. A baby skunk. It was trapped in the old compost pit.

The compost pit had been abandoned some years ago. The pit now existed as a sort of open concrete bunker, having been cleared out of decades of assiduous composting by the previous owner. From season to season, no one even so much as looked at it. Had it not been for the plaintive mewling, I’d probably never have given it another glance in my life.

But here it was: an inky, stripey, stinky skunk crying out for its mother.

Mother?! The moment that thought fully registered, I swung on my heels, scanning the brush for a defensive mother skunk prepared to do battle. And not a moment too soon, for the little thing had been well versed by its mom: It let loose a blast of the spray for which skunks are so well known.

What to do? What to do? I was beside myself with maternal angst. It had been crying, I now realized, since the night before. Yes, it was a stinky skunk capable of delivering a fetid blow at four metres, but it was stuck. And it was a baby. And I am sucker.

A conclave was quickly formed and it was decided that Wildlife Rescue would know precisely what to do in matters of imprisoned Mephitis mephitis kits — which is the formal appellation for baby skunks.

I called and told them the story. And that’s when the rescue lady gave me my instructions. I was, she said, to sneak up on it. I was to carry a blanket. As I got within range of the skunk, I should throw the blanket over the skunk, ideally from behind so as to have the element of surprise on my side. This gambit, I thought, would be better referred to as the element of sheer idiocy.

Once I had blanketed the skunk, I should put it in some sort of container — a cardboard box would do nicely — and then, while keeping it covered, drive the creature 20.2 kilometres to their facility.

You realize, I intoned with utmost gravity, this is a skunk we are talking about. Not a squirrel, a raccoon, or even a grizzly cub, but a skunk.

She was clear on that. Perhaps she was reading from the wrong section of the Wildlife Rescue Manual, maybe the chapter on robins with injured wings? I thanked her and said goodbye. Clearly, springing the skunk was going to be an inhouse operation.

Over the next half hour we amused ourselves with scenarios involving helicopters, grappling hooks, stun guns and various skunk skullduggery schemes. We came up emptyhanded. It was decided that the skunk would have to get itself out of the pit.

We would help, but there would be no taxi ride across town. A quick Google search revealed that skunks’ spray tanks ran out after about six rounds. One whiff outside and you knew the kit had to be running on fumes by now. Our initial cover of darkness plan was a bust as skunks are nocturnal. But time was on our side: The good news was that it could take the skunk up to 10 days for stink restocking. Our task was to make sure she was running dry. We accomplished this by lobbing pebbles at the pit provoking the wee thing into a miasma of stench.

A plan was hatched. The old house was surrounded by a beautiful iron fence. One de-commissioned section of it was tucked up behind a shed. If we could get it into the compost pit, Pepe le Pew could use the balusters as a ladder to exit the pit.

This operation was going to involve well-oiled, synchronized co-operation. As a group, we stunk as much as the skunk at well-oiled, synchronized cooperation. The fencing section, however, was extracted from the grip of the morning glory and we portaged it across the lawn. There was much deliberation as to which team people were assigned to. Me? I ran Joint Special Operation Command. Two people were given the job of holding back the underbrush and two people ducked in under the shrubs and slid the fencing into the pit. Then we all ran like hell. From inside the living room we could watch the spot where our considerable skunk recon indicated the animal would make its exit. It didn’t take long.

The kit emerged from the brush, timidly, haltingly. It stopped to sniff the air as if to say ‘Nice work’. Then it unabashedly wobbled off across the lawn, its white blaze like a compass needle pointing its direction.

We could only hope it would find its mom.

The fence section remained in the pit … just in case.

Say it, Justin. Just say it! ’Twas perhaps many a thought-bubble as Trudeau 2.0 appeared at a shindig, held Wednesday night, at the home of former Toronto mayor Art Eggleton and his deliciously named wife Camille Bacchus. Another night, another funder, another rinse-and-repeat address: the destiny, manifestly, of the unstoppable Liberal. But this particular reception just so happened to occur on the same day that a storm-burst had occurred, on Twitter, and beyond, buoyed by a not-so-innocuous turn of events that occurred on a Porter flight. Invoking his dad, Justin scribbled down the words “Just watch me” on a piece of paper, responding to a note that had manifested from another passenger, asking, “Can you really beat Harper?”

Just watch me. Just watch me. Just watch me. In the Canadian context, there’s probably no aphorism as short, sweet and memorable — competition only provided, perhaps by the late, great Marshall McLuhan who, right here in Toronto, coined the prophetic epigram, “The medium is the message.”

Pierre originally tah-dahed