I happened upon a skunk one winter afternoon as I was walking back from my school. The skunk is a cat-sized animal, black with one or two stripes running along its back from head to and also along its bushy tail. It is omnivorous, eating whatever it can find with its sharp teeth. I know all about the skunk and how it has a way to protect itself from its predators. If a preditor happens upon it it will attempt to run away until realising this will not be successful; then it will lift its tail as it faces you if you come close. When you get too close, it will suddenly turn around and with its tail up and towards you it will spray at you a very strong and bad-smelling scent from a storage-sac under its tail. This smell is so strong that most animals will run away with their eyes burning and their nose filled with the stink. But I was a wiser boy than most animals and I was interested in two things: how far could a skunk spray and how many times can it spray at me before it ran out of scent.
This was in the winter and there was a lot of snow around. I chased the skunk, carefully, until it decided that I was not going to go away. Then it stopped and faced me. I would jump towards it then jump backwards as fast as I could before it could get turned around. I remember this as being quite a dangerous thing to do since it was able to turn and spray me very quickly. I kept a count of how many times it sprayed. It did not spray out its scent every time it turned around after it could see that I was not going to run away .I think that is how it conserves its "ammo". After a few close-calls, when I was only able to escape being sprayed by luck alone, I tried another way to "empty" this skunk without being coated by its scent. I packed together large balls of snow and threw them at its behind, its rear end, its nether portions, piling up snow high so that when it sprayed the spray would be blocked by the snow-wall. In this manner I was able to "drain" the scent gland. I could see the yellow patch in the fresh snow whenever it sprayed until the time came when its efforts to spray left no yellow snow. Then I let it walk away. I wondered at the time how long it would take for this skunk to replenish its supply.
What did I learn? A skunk can spray its scent out to a distance of about 4 metres at first but its ability to reach this distance drops off rapidly after the first 3 sprays to about 2 metres. It can spray a reasonable amount of scent about 5 times before the volume drops off. Thereafter it can still produce a small amount with a powerful smell but can not eject this scent very far.
What do you think about my "scientific experiments"? :-)
