Where do the skunks mostly live. I have caught one this year in a hay barn, but that's it.

I am going to venture a guess that you are a new, energetic trapper. Congratulations and stick with it! Also, there is a wealth of knowledge to be gained from the achieves. Below is a link to the "general" ones but there are others if you scroll down through the list of forums. Many fine folks here have taken the troubles of posting pictures and they are a huge help. Spend some time and go through the posts and I would guess they will answer 99% of the questions you may have. Good luck!

https://trapperman.com/forum/ubbthreads.php/forums/8/1/general-trapping-archive

In this part of Georgia they are in scattered pockets. Areas that have them then whole sections that don't. Seems like the ones here prefer sections of older ag land with scattered old homeplaces, barns and rockpiles where fields have been cleared of rock.

But I only get calls for skunk when they take up in a crawlspace.

You might be in the area where they died off last spring. If you had that extra month of ice and freezing last spring it killed off most of the population at least here in did. I should have 90+ by now I have 7.

What makes you think it was the ice and cold that killed off the skunks?

Experience trapping them over the years. Often in the spring many are about totally dehydrated they weigh next to nothing and are sponge like from dehydration so add another month on to that with freezing conditions it seems like a logical probability. No reports of them dying outside the dens that I heard of or came across. Of the 7 I have so far 6 of those came out of one place and that place produces 15-20 most years.

Wait 2 more weeks. Most of them will be in the middle of the road
Rut be on

While I agree with the general sentiment of this post, I do have questions as to why you think he'll find a post in the archives about where the skunks hang out, LOL

Hmm I always thought that was just the young getting kicked out. Never thought about breeding season for them may be about the same time.

In Ohio, most skunks Winter in groundhogs holes.

Keith

Here in NY many winter under buildings. One year I got 16 from a hole under one out building 14 of them were coming out of the hole. Also like Kieth said woodchuck holes, seems everything uses them for a den if they get the chance. Breeding season here will go into full swing in a couple weeks. Any warm day once it starts you'll smell them and find tracks.

around here lots of skunks, live under small buildings in town, in the woods they live in wholes that other animals have made, mostly by making they bigger, not every deep in the ground, if we get a long cold spell without much snow most will freeze to death.

I haven't seen a skunk for three years. Used to have them walking all over my place.

Page county,VA is crawling with skunks. I usually see them more frequently in the warmer parts of the year. Skunks love poultry farms. If anyone needs a place to hunt/ trap skunks you are more than welcome to come to Page county, Virginia. I personally hate skunks because I got sprayed in 2013.

5 am. and dusk is mostly when I see them waddling around.

Apparently they hang out where I put cat sets out this year!

I see them on a trail camera at night near a groundhog/woodchuck hole under my back patio deck and they will live in groundhog dens. I try catching them coming out or going into that hole. Possums will also use woodchuck holes/dens.

Just make a dirthole set for canines..... you catch skunks......LOL.... if they are around.

Skunks die of other things in the den too, rabies and distemper. I have seen skunks out moving during the middle of the day during late springs, when I thought they should be denned up yet. I trapped them for eight years starting March 15 and I would catch 100+ a spring, when I was trapping them for Delta Waterfowl. So I have a pretty good idea what a spring skunk looks like. I don't think a skunk will stay in a den and die of dehydration. They will come out. I have seen skunk dens where they dig out of a snow drift. I worked some skunk / coon rabies surveys and was told by the disease biologist I was trapping for that skunks in ND at times would have a 80-90% infection rate of rabies in areas at times. Skunk and coon numbers are down in my area too, but it is not like it is the first time I have seen it. This next week the weather will be warm enough skunks and coon will move some. They may not roam miles from the den, but they will be out some. I am sure you average warmer than I do, and had some days / night last spring that they came out too. I just wondered where you came up with the idea. I would think there was a much better chance of them dyeing off due to disease than dehydration.

I had a skunk on game cam video a few years ago coming and going from a cat cubby several times in late winter. One check I find it dead in the cubby it weighed less then a pound it’s nails were longer then normal obviously extremely dehydrated for whatever reason it had food in the cubby and snow but still died.

I think if you ice over the food supply and the temps stay subzero well into spring a guy should expect a major loss then. We have had distemper and rabies outbreaks in the past but never had a loss like the one last spring but those conditions have not been around before that I can remember.

I don’t think it rocket science after seeing the condition of skunks in a normal year.

I would bet my spring thaw comes two to three weeks later than yours and my freeze up is that much before yours. So I would have a month to a month and a half longer denning season on a normal year. Skunks and coon seem to make it through just fine here, unless they get a disease. I have found a number of coon and skunks dead in the field and all were very thin in the winter and spring. I can't say dehydration ever crossed my mind. I even found a coon on a dyke road that was still breathing, but would not move. I am guessing it was distemper. There was water both sides of him. How are your coon numbers compared to normal?

We are at an all time low for many species here in SD skunks have always been the exception they have taken hits before but bounced back quickly. Skunk numbers have never been this low in the 45 years I’ve lived in SD. Just not finding dead ones anywhere I’ve not heard of anyone finding dead ones that goes with the past die offs where they were found in large numbers.

Dehydration/starvation is not unusual in other species so I would not rule it out. Almost no skunks/coon hit on the roads but the coons are in better shape than the skunks are in. Coyotes are down also but that’s due to the state programs.

Washington DC is loaded with them. You could pick up several weasels there too.

Our northern N.Y. Skunk population
seemed to be at a very low ebb this fall.

It shall be interesting to see if they start to show up
hit along the roads during our January thaw this week
along with the approaching breeding season.

w

Is your wolf population high?Wolves just love to shred skunks.

Iowa trapper association has a YouTube channel and has a video of skunk trapping.....I found it very good and stuff I learned.....

Nope the wolverines keep the wolves in check.

So no wolves in south Dakota?

I was in MO last summer covered a lot of the state looking for truck parts for the trucks I collect. The Joplin area had by far the most amount of skunks they were everywhere dead on the roads.

In the zoo only, we had an open season the year around East River years ago until the Feds got involved. A guy shot one a couple of years ago thinking it was a coyote it was ruled an accident.

You keep them up there. Caught one on one property and seen another caught on another property in the last 7 years. We don’t even see or smell them on the roads anymore. One was enough for me!

Darn coon, I find skunks attracted to old brush piles, abandoned buildings or barns, and brushy, grassy odd areas that harbor lots of insects and mice.

Around late February, if our weather is pretty warm, early March, if our weather in February is cooler, there will be skunks hit all over on the roads around here in Ohio. There will be several dead skunks per mile in some stretches.

Keith

Skunks are a favorite of mine. A rarely get a call for one but when I do it's an easy sell job, lol. Problem though is about half the time it ends up being a dead one in the crawlspace.

This and I’ll add junk pile's and stacked hay

In Washington D.C!!!

Skunks like to hang around water also.I have caught plenty in mink boxes.