Petey Le Pew

Whenever I do of my “pictures and stories” presentations I always show some photos of our chickens, followed by photos of some of the wildlife they’ve attracted over the last twenty-five plus years. “If you want to attract wildlife to your yard, just get yourself some chickens,” I say to the audience.

The four species of skunks found in Arizona are also found throughout North America and are in the family Mephitidae. The hooded skunk (Mephitis macroura) comes in a couple different color schemes from an all white back to an all black back with a couple narrow white stripes down its sides. We got the latter. Yay!

I can’t prove that I caught the rascal that killed our chicken. We have the striped skunk and hog nosed skunk around our place too (the hog nosed is an unlikely culprit, as it’s too busy turning our garden over) and maybe this hooded skunk just broke in for the yummy cat food bait. One thing is for sure; after twenty-five years it’s time to re-secure the chicken coop and yard!

The photo is of a page in my old…very old… 1959 edition Peterson, Field Guide to the Mammals. I don’t know why I didn’t get a photo as the skunk was leaving me in a foul mist…