State rallies the great skunk sniffout

Residents have been asked to stick their noses in state business: determining the animal's population.

By JULIE HAUSERMAN, Times Staff Writer
© St. Petersburg Times
published October 12, 2002

TALLAHASSEE -- No joke: The state of Florida wants to know whether you have seen or smelled a skunk in the past five years.

If you have, state wildlife officials want you to tell them about it pronto.

"I haven't seen a dead skunk on the road for a while," said Henry Cabbage, spokesman for the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission.

And neither have the agency's biologists. They wonder whether the skunk population is taking a plunge, so they are asking the public for help.

The state has more sophisticated ways to count its wildlife species, but this all-points bulletin for skunks is a preliminary fact-finding mission.

Wildlife commission biologist Kristen Nelson, who is collecting the information, admits that she's been taking some kidding for it. With a stinky spray they can shoot up to 15 feet, skunks have an image problem. She doubts anybody will form a "Save the Skunk" Society.

But Nelson stresses, "Every creature has some sort of importance in the ecosystem, even if we don't know what that importance is."

Skunks, for example, eat mice and rats, although their diet is mostly insects.

Could pesticide spraying be at fault? Or habitat loss? No one knows for sure.

Skunks aren't protected by state law. In fact, it's legal to kill them year-round. The black and white animal, about the size of a house cat, is sometimes killed for its shiny fur. If the numbers don't look good for the skunk, the state could decide to come up with ways to protect the species. The wildlife commission has different ways to count species.

To find manatees, biologists fly over waterways. Alligator populations are counted by mapping all of their habitat and estimating that a certain number of gators live there.

Black bear biologists collect fur on fences and trees and analyze its DNA. Bird watchers count migrating species and turn in reports yearly.

Before the Florida panther population plunged, the state asked people to report sightings.

"It's never been necessary to count skunks before," Cabbage said. "They've always been presumed to be plentiful. There may be fewer than we think they are."

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