Wild Animals: Pepe and Hepzibah

(Is this a belated Groundhog Day post? Possibly...I live with them, but I have no stories to tell about shy, peaceable groundhogs.)

During the years when I was writing for Associated Content, two skunks lived at the Cat Sanctuary. They respected the cats, and the cats respected them--unlike Prance Possum, whom my cat Mackerel hated and chased away. 

I knew that male mustelids tend to be bigger than females, but the skunks didn't seem like a couple. In fact Pepe didn't look much like Hepzibah at all. Hepzibah was the classic Striped Skunk of the Eastern States, the archetypal skunk on whom all cartoon skunks are based, a pretty little thing, like a small fluffy cat. People really have been sprayed for trying to pet them; they look so cute and harmless. 

Photo donated to Wikipedia By Wallace Keck - CITY OF ROCKS NATIONAL RESERVE — Striped Skunk, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=72034325 . If you're accustomed to cats, it might look as if it's about to rub up against your leg. If you're accustomed to dogs, it might look as if it's hoping for a food treat. Skunks have a different body language. When they assume this position, back away fast. This is the threat display. The air already has an odor, because you can always smell a skunk. That odor is about to become much stronger.

But Pepe looked neither cute nor harmless. He was the size of a short hound dog, and had a different kind of face.

Photo donated to Wikipedia By USFWS Mountain-Prairie - Penelope Le Pew, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=48577657 . Evidently the Fish & Wildlife Service agent was thinking of the same cartoon! Our Pepe had only thin uneven patchy-looking white stripes, unlike the model Penelope's luxuriant double stripes. This and the large size are apparently more typical of hognose skunks in Texas than of hognose skunks in Arizona. Hognose skunks, as a genus, are more typical of South America than of North America, but the biggest ones are reported from Texas and Mexico.

Skunks are light for their apparent size; much of what we see of them is fluff. Pepe might have weighed as much as Polly, seven pounds or maybe eight. He looked the size of a cat or dog who would have weighed at least twice that much. Skunks are really small animals, but they can afford to be bold. Nobody else wants to eat them. Other animals usually prefer to avoid them.

I wrote a whimsical Cat Sanctuary Interview that suggested that all the animals were sitting around chatting. They didn't do that. I did see Pepe, Hepzibah, Mackerel the tomcat, Polly his sister, and Polly's kittens all scattered around the yard at the same time, a few times, but the cats kept a healthy distance from the skunks and the skunks kept a healthy distance from each other. 

Neither skunk answered to its name, but everyone who saw either of them seemed to agree what their names had to be. The big one, presumed male, was Pepe, after a famous cartoon skunk whose adventures I never read/watched. The small one, presumed female, was Hepzibah, after another famous cartoon skunk of whom I had been able to find some reprints. Both the cartoon Pepe and the cartoon Hepzibah were, for whatever reason, given French accents, although skunks are American animals.  The cartoon Hepzibah was the sweetheart of the cartoon Pogo Possum, the sweet innocent hero of their cartoon series. They were drawn romantically paddling around the swamp in a boat. In real life skunks and possums may respect each other enough to coexist, but they can't crossbreed and don't seem to bond. Walt Kelly clearly thought of his cartoon characters Pogo and Hepzibah as human children he drew as animals, probably to protect his young relatives' privacy. Real possums do not seem to me to be intelligent enough to keep up with skunks, though I suppose, if cats can make pets of possums--which they can--somewhere a skunk might have made a pet of a possum too. 

Possums have a peculiar metabolism that allows them to slurp up the most disgusting filth they find without becoming ill or, normally, spreading disease germs to other animals. They are warm-blooded, but not as warm as most mammals. They don't get rabies. Skunks are not so peculiar and, though a healthy skunk never attacks any living thing it can't eat, skunks seen by humans in the daytime are likely to be sick. Rabid skunks are unpredictable, like other rabid animals; they're more likely to hide than to attack, but they are in great pain and confusion, such that anyone who gets within range is likely to be bitten. The wretched animals who transmit rabies by biting are hardly to be blamed. They are probably delirious, living in their worst nightmares. They need killing because they can't be helped in any better way than by ending their misery. In any case a rabid skunk is definitely something you want to avoid. Even if they're not rabid, skunks can carry parvovirus, which does not affect humans but is highly fatal for dogs, and Weil's Disease, an unpleasant liver-and-kidney infection that is occasionally fatal for humans.

But when I said to my Significant Other, "I don't see how that big skunk has survived this long with whatever is the matter with it," he at once said, "What is the matter with it? Looks like a Hognose Skunk from out west to me. Probably a pet somebody dumped out when they noticed it was not growing up to be a cat. That would be why it's so tame. Its face is supposed to look like that. It's a different kind of animal from Hepzibah." 

Hognose skunks are said to live seven or eight years, normally. There may have been more than one of Pepe, singular though he looked, or Mother may have observed carelessly when she said that the big ugly skunk had cleaned out the European Hornets in 1982. A skunk who was active in 1982 could hardly have lived into 2015. Our Pepe died by misadventure toward the end of that summer. Even if he'd come to the Cat Sanctuary as a young abandoned pet in 2007, he died old. 

I don't know how long Hepzibah had been alive in 2007, either, nor do I know for sure that she was female. She just had a dainty look and a demure, peaceable disposition--though Pepe always seemed goodnatured, too. On the night of the Fourth of July of 2011, after the official fireworks show, I heard someone driving fast up and down the road past our house, throwing out firecrackers, and shouting my natural sister's name in what sounded like a drunken voice. The Professional Bad Neighbor had just lost his wife and found the time to be a full-time neighborhood nuisance. In the morning I found Hepzibah dead in the road, having been run over several times. Later that summer I heard that in other neighborhoods leaving dead animals in the road was the PBN's "trademark," and dead animals continued to appear in the road from that summer until the PBN cheated his deceased wife's nephew out of the field adjacent to my orchard. 

People have made pets of skunks. "Because they can," I imagine must have been the reason. Most of the mustelids can become friendly with humans, though I've never heard anyone seriously claim to keep a wolverine as a pet. Otters and ferrets can be lovable. Weasels seem to be generally seen as treacherous, though they are smaller than ferrets and equally cute; the most charitable descriptions of weasels as pets are that they are aggressive and hard to train. Minks and polecats are often described as vicious beasts nobody would ever want as pets, though they, and also the short-tailed stoat or ermine, are sometimes kept as pets in Europe where at least they are native species. Some people say skunks are the next easiest mustelid to live with, after ferrets; they can learn to use a cat litter box, but they demand as much attention as dogs do. Like ferrets, some skunks like to snuggle as well as chase and be chased, climb and explore, shred their humans' belongings, eat things they shouldn't and be sick, and the usual amusing adventures wild animals have when kept in human homes. Pet skunks are usually surgically deodorized, and I used to wonder whether this had happened to Pepe; they still smell skunky, but lose the big scent glands that broadcast the odor all through the neighborhood. A deodorized skunk has lost its main natural defense and should not be released into the wild. 

Like possums, skunks make better friends than pets--though they are somewhat protected from the hazards of life when they're kept as pets, and both species may live longer as pets than they would in the wild state, IF the humans who "adopt" them are responsible and knowledgeable and also lucky. A possum's maximum life expectancy is about five years, and most live less than half that long. A Striped Skunk may live ten years or longer if kept as a pet, but it will not be a low-maintenance pet, nor will it be considered safe; very few landlords will rent places to families with a pet skunk, neighborhood associations may demand that the "wild animal" be returned to the wild, and if the skunk nips when grabbed by a visitor it may be killed. If it seems to you that most of the reasons not to keep a skunk as a pet have more to do with human ignorance than with skunks themselves, you and I agree, but...hotels that advertise lodgings for cats and dogs will probably still throw out anyone travelling with a skunk.

As free-ranging outdoor friends, however, skunks are useful because they eat more insects than anything else. They can kill other small prey, and they eat some plants and fruits, but they're designed to get most of their protein from insects. They are especially partial to ground-nesting wasps. If they were in charge of naming the invasive Asian hornet species they'd probably call them something like "jumbo hornets" or "tangy hornets" rather than "murder hornets." Adult wasps' stings aren't likely to reach through their fur, and they devour the baby wasps who don't have venom, Skunks also like grubs, grasshoppers, crickets, and some kinds of beetles, and they have been known to eat bees. 

If a skunk hangs around your home, you may want it to leave, but first consider why it wants to be at your home. Skunks usually go where they can find things they like to eat. Some of skunks' favorite foods can do more damage than the skunks will do. If you can train children and pets to respect the skunk, you may never know how well you've been rewarded.

So I never tried to make pets of Pepe and Hepzibah, although they were good neighbors. It seemed better to be content that they let me see them from twenty or thirty yards away. 

Below are some animals that might be considered unusual or even "exotic" pets, but are less problematic than skunks.

Zipcode 10101; Delilia & Sammy, Ferrets from Connecticut

Their web page: https://www.petfinder.com/small-furry/delilia-and-sammy-54895298/ct/berlin/rescue-me-small-animal-placement-inc-ct584/

Ferrets are mustelids like skunks. Most ferret fanciers don't mind being able to find their pets in the dark, but these two unfortunate females belonged to someone who did mind. They've been deodorized like skunks. Nevertheless they are described as friendly and in need of entertainment and mental stimulation. 

Zipcode 20202: Iris & Athena, Mice from D.C. 

Their web page: ttps://www.petfinder.com/small-furry/iris-59326000/md/frederick/small-angels-rescue-md179/

Despite their mythological names Iris and Athena are said to be ordinary lovable tame mice.

Zipcode 30303: Millie & Kamala, Black Hooded Rats from Norcross 

Their web page: https://www.petfinder.com/small-furry/kamala-millie-59443398/ga/norcross/the-georgia-rat-rescue-ga502/

They were brought to the same shelter by different humans, but they soon realized they had more than names in common. (Millie was named after a popular White House pet. Kamala was named after an unpopular White House employee.) As shown, "black hooded rat" does not have to be literally true. The little animals, who don't crossbreed with alley rats, are cage-reared as food for larger animals and, for rodents, are extremely clean. If you had to be bitten by an animal, a hooded rat who has always lived in a clean lab, classroom, or home is one of the safer species. They are both brave and clever, sometimes more brave than clever--consider that they learn to snuggle up to humans for security.