Meet the Eastern Striped Skunk

It’s hard to misidentify the Eastern Striped Skunk when it is in your yard or on your property. Cincinnati is home to hundreds of mated pairs of these emission producing monochromatic small mammals. 

Previously classed in the same subfamily as weasels, skunks have earned their own distinct classifications. With a stout figure of stunted legs, a thick body, and long sharp claws, they are perfectly designed for foraging for insects in their environment. 

Primarily insectivores, the Eastern Striped Skunk is known to forage in the lawns and gardens of Cincinnati area property owners looking for beetle larvae, grubs, and stinging insect nests. During winter months when the ground is frozen and insect food sources are limited, skunks will consume mice, voles, eggs, and chicks from ground nesting birds.

Skunks tend to create their denning sites in late winter/early spring and will even take over abandoned woodchuck, fox, or coyote dens. Cincinnati area homeowners will often notice dirt piles in the corners of the edges of their porch, patio, sidewalk or deck in January indicating a skunk has moved in.