Sent this in for a friend only took a year to get it back they guy sending it in held if for a while and then it took 9 months to get back! LOL Turned out sweet did not think it would turn out as well as it did if I remember right it was in the freezer a year and they look like they want to slip just sitting on the stretcher. LOL

Civets are cool. I saw a litter 50 yrs ago in SE Nebraska, but they went missing down there. Just skunks now.

That is a very impressive tail for a civet. Almost looks like they sewed on a striped skunk tail.

The central part of the State is loaded with them if you have the habitat that they need.

He had white spots on his head and tip of the tail!

I would of tanned it too.

Cool looking.

Is there anyplace in the country any more where Spotted Skunks are common? I always wanted to trap one for my collection, but it seems they are gone in places where they were common when I was a lad. Michigan has none.

Problem is the habitat they need is disappearing and several universities are doing studies on them making them a hot commodity. I get some when I cage a lot when coons are up.

I take 2 in a spot and release them after that! I get some ADC ones but have not went after them at all this year. Last year I caught 3 males at a old farm place and sold them to the research project.

They are still very common in western Washington. Maybe Humptulips will tell you how many he caught this year. Wouldn't surprise me if he was the top skunk producer in the Country this year. I'd bet money he was the top spotted skunk producer.

There used to be a small perfume making company in Portland and they paid good money for civet essence. I had a conversation with a trapper that used to get beef heads and wire them to trees in Tillamook county Oregon. He was catching 4-800 a year back in the 70's. I believe he told me he was making $15 to $30 per civet just on the stink.

If the money was right I am confident I could catch several hundred a winter with no problem. They are plentiful in western Oregon and western Washington.

We have had this discussion several times in the past. The spotted skunk mentioned along the west coast is a different species than the one in the eastern portion of the US. The most recent reports that I have been able to access state that the eastern spotted skunk is still commonly found only in parts of Florida. In states like Iowa and Minnesota where they were common(taken by thousands each season in the 1940s) they are now considered rare or even possibly eliminated. I believe they are now listed as threatened or endangered in several Midwestern states.

I caught #70 yesterday. Not my best year but did good selling them this year, only 7 left.

Here's an average looking one from around here. Looks like Law Dogs has better color.

Here are a couple from the cascade range in western Oregon. You will notice that our western spotted skunks tend to have more of a prominent white tipped tail over their eastern cousins.

In the past I have gotten western spotted skunk pelts from both beaverpeeler and humptilips. Not only were the pelts from their two areas somewhat different from each other, beaverpeelers came from two different mountain ranges and those two populations were also different from each other. It would be interesting to know if any western mammalogists have done genetic testing or used other means to determine if there are several different subspecies of the western spotted skunk or if all are the same subspecies. Among the eastern spotted skunks there are currently considered three subspecies, the one that used to broadly inhabit the plains, another that lives in the southern Appalachians and a third that lives in Florida and of these three only the Florida skunk is considered to be doing fairly well.

whats a tanned civet go for now days???

Darn those are beautiful fur.

Easy to get $45 for them making it easy to want to hammer them but lucky I am accustom to being poor so I regulate my take of them to not hurt their numbers. like the striped skunks here the patterns vary!

So do they stink like a skunk or do they smell different?

Brad

Lots of ideas on that, some say sweeter/stronger/better but it is different the fat looks like grits in a bottle not like the mustard of the striped skunk. I has a better price to it but then it takes a dozen civets to get around a ounce bottle full. The smaller ones have little stink in them but the larger males have a fair amount.

I sell civet essence by the half oz and it can take 6-10 of ours to do that amount. Like Law says, the bigger males tend to have the most. Get $50 for it and it is never hard to sell when cat prices are good. The aged civet essence tends to have a slight sweetness to it.

imissed: See you are from Iowa. Back in the 1940s trappers in Iowa SOLD up to almost 100,000 spotted skunk pelts in a single season. Just like in most other places, the numbers tumbled following WWII and likely the manufacture and use of organic pesticides. Within 20 years numbers were down at least 90% and then declined another 90% in the next decade or so. They are currently listed as endangered in Iowa and none had been reported there in over 20 years when several(a family I hope) were observed near Camp Dodge(Polk Co.) a few years ago. Iowa trappers may have more information regarding incidental catches but the DNR folks do not have it.

Each time we discuss this subject several folks respond that they know where there are spotted skunk. We finally have an opportunity to share our information. In 2015 an Eastern Spotted Skunk Study group was formed that numbered 18 state conservation organizations, about 20 universities and 3 federal conservation agencies. More may have joined since. Most of these folks are in the southeastern US where they have been able to capture and track skunk from both southeastern populations. Initially none of the states and universities in the upper Midwest where the prairie population skunks were once numerous and are now nearly gone had joined the study group but it sure seems that they will be forced to if that population is named a federally endangered species as seems eminent.

These are some from our coast range forests. Later in the season the colors tend to fade a little and some years the noses and heads getting a little yellowish tinge.

The very prominent white tip on the tail of western spotted skunks seen in beaverpeelers photo above is one of the distinguishing marks to separate them from the eastern. Oddly, the first skunk that Law Dog shows at the beginning of this thread has a small tuft of white hair though most eastern do not.

they sure are pretty...... the last one I caught was in Arkansas 40 yrs ago