Behind the Badge - Good Intentions
Good Intentions
District Game Warden Jonathan Peterson
Every spring the North Dakota Game and Fish Department makes it a point to let everyone know that leaving baby animals alone is extremely important to the success of our wildlife that we so covet in our state.
As hard as it is to see a deer fawn all by itself in a field of tall grass, or a half dozen little fluff ball ducks that are waddling down a gravel road, or a baby fox by itself, these animals need to be left alone because usually when people get involved by trying to “help” or “rescue” the little critters, they end up causing more harm than the good intentions they think they are having on the life of the young critter.
This could not have been proven truer than when I got a call from the local sheriff’s department stating that they had just taken a call about an individual that had picked up a little skunk off the side of the road and that she was keeping it as her pet.
I talked with the deputy that took the call and the information that was given was that this individual had the skunk in town in her apartment complex and was causing quite a pungent odor around this small town.
The individual was seen taking the animal out multiple times throughout the day to let it use the facilities outside and that she had to really coerce the animal back inside the house.
It was very apparent that the animal had no intention of being a domesticated skunk by the odor and demeanor that it had with the individual.
I told the deputy that I would grab a live trap and head up to that location and that we would take the skunk from the individual, as it is not legal to possess a skunk or racoon in the state of North Dakota due to the risk of rabies.
I arrived before the deputy and stopped just one mile outside of town to wait for him to arrive.
While I was sitting in a field approach, a vehicle left town and started to head toward me.
When it saw me sitting in the field approach it stopped and just stared at my truck.
When the vehicle finally started to head on its way I called the deputy who was just a few miles down the road from me and told him that I am pretty sure that the skunk was in that vehicle.
The deputy asked me how I knew, and I told him what had happened with the weird stop on the highway once they saw me, and I could also smell the skunk as it went by.
The deputy made a traffic stop on the vehicle and when we walked up to the vehicle it was obvious that this was the people that we needed to talk to due to the very strong odor coming from the vehicle.
I asked the driver where the skunk was and explained that we were not there to get anyone into any trouble.
We just wanted to remove the skunk from their possession as it was illegal to possess in North Dakota.
The driver acted like she didn’t know what we were talking about but when I told her that the odor was so strong that it was making my eyes water, she needed to just be honest with me and hand over the skunk.
She was adamant that she did not have the skunk.
I asked her if we could just double-check her apartment to make sure that it was no longer in her possession.
She said that it would be fine for us to make sure.
We followed her to the apartment and the entire building smelled like several skunks were living in the place.
We made sure that she no longer had the skunk anymore and I told her to just be honest about what had happened up to this point.
She said that her friend had picked up the skunk and could not get it to stop spraying.
It was also a mean animal that did not cooperate with being cooped up in a kennel.
Her friend dropped the skunk off with her hoping she could figure out what to do with it.
She said that all the skunk did was spray continuously and tried to bite everyone that handled it.
I asked her what happened to the skunk because it was clearly not in the apartment anymore.
She said that when she was letting it out to go to the bathroom, it bit her and after that she decided that she didn’t want a pet skunk anymore, so she let it go out in the wild.
I asked her to show me where it had bitten her, and she showed me a spot on her hand that had clearly broke skin.
I asked her if she had been treated for rabies yet, as it is a very serious concern with a bite from a skunk.
The woman said that she didn’t know she needed to be looked at and I explained that she had a narrow window to get treated for rabies before it becomes a very serious condition and that she should immediately head to town to get seen by a doctor.
I asked her if she could remember where she let the skunk out in the wild.
She and her boyfriend really did not have a very good memory of where they let it out as they just wanted to get rid of it.
I sent her into town with the deputy to be seen by a doctor, where they started treatment for rabies and I took the boyfriend out to try and find this skunk.
After driving around aimlessly with not any real credible information on where it could possibly be I brought the boyfriend back to the apartment and told him that since we were unsuccessful in finding the skunk to test for rabies, the gal would probably have to go through an entire rabies treatment series.
I explained to him that since we got her into the doctor as soon as we did that, she would be alright.
I left the very pungent smelling apartment complex and went back to the sheriff’s department to make sure that it all got reported to the North Dakota Health Department.
This poor woman had all the best intentions on trying to help this animal and ended up in the hospital getting rabies shots.
Moral of the story is leave wildlife alone, especially a skunk.