If the fish in your backyard pond kept disappearing, you’d get tired of replacing them. You’d start focusing on getting rid of the character who was eating them, most likely a raccoon.

That’s why Debbie and Jerry bought a large Havahart live trap, set it up near their pond, baited it with tuna fish, and waited. Several mornings later Jerry stepped out the back door, saw they had something in the trap, and was immediately disappointed to realize they had apparently caught someone’s black and white cat.

Fortunately, Jerry was approaching the trap from the rear when he realized what he really had in that wire cage.

The back end was all Jerry could see of the little skunk. That was good. It meant the skunk could not see him.

Quietly, Jerry backed away from the cage. He would much rather have dealt with a thirty-pound snarling raccoon than a five-pound skunk. He needed advice.

Clackamas County Fish and Wildlife said, “You have to release it. Take it five miles past the Oregon City limits and let it go.”

“Don’t you have someone who can come out and help me?” Jerry asked.

It’s a skunk in a large wire cage. I won’t be able to get anywhere near it!

“We don’t do that, sir. You have to take it out of town.”

How about a humane way to get rid of it without getting close?” Jerry asked.

“No! You are required to take it five miles out of town.”

Jerry was running short of patience by then, “How about I take it to your offices and release it there?”

“No! Do not bring it here, sir and do not do anything to that skunk! We may send a officer out to your house and make sure you properly release it!”

Jerry had to work that morning but he came up with a plan.

Debbie grew up on a farm in Colton. She knows skunks and she says, “If a skunk can’t see you, it won’t spray you.”

Holding up a large tarp so the skunk couldn’t see him, Jerry tip-toed quietly through the tulips, past the pond and right up to the wire cage. Still hidden, he carefully covered the entire cage with the tarp. Then he used several bungee cords to make sure the tarp was tied down tightly. Next, Jerry lifted the large cage to the back of their small Chevy pickup. The skunk was quiet.

Jerry planned to park the truck in a shady spot at his office and then, after work, take the skunk out of the city and release it.

Sailing down I-205, with the skunk in the back of his truck, Jerry was feeling pretty confident.” So far so good,” he thought!

It wasn’t long before Jerry noticed honking, a lot of honking. Then the driver of a white Toyota flew by and scowled at Jerry. Suddenly Jerry picked up the powerful scent of skunk. Panic took hold of him when he looked in the back of the pickup and saw the tarp flapping in the wind. People in the lane next to him flew by as fast as they could, some of them were gesturing toward the back of the truck. Many were making obscene gestures. Those who passed carried with them the scent of a terrified freeway-riding skunk.

They say that a skunk can spray about six times in a row to a distance of ten feet. But this skunk was really terrified and Jerry swears the skunk never stopped shooting until they arrived at Jerry’s work. In any event, the ten-foot range must have been extended to hundreds of feet behind the truck – what with the wind produced by the freeway speeds.

Jerry made it to work and parked in a shady spot far away from any other vehicles. He told his work buddy, John, the tale of his morning adventure.

“Skunks have never bothered me,” John said, “I’m a single man with a cabin in the woods. Bring the skunk out to my place and let him loose. He’s welcome!”

After work, Jerry carefully tied the tarp down again and followed John out to the cabin. In a pleasant wooded spot they slowly lifted the tarp from the front of the cage.

John stood behind the cage, held the tarp in front of himself, and lifted the door of the cage. The skunk could see nothing but freedom.

He waited. And waited.

Jerry couldn’t see any reason to wait for the skunk to gather courage so he went home.

Now it was just John and the skunk.

John continued waiting for several minutes.

Since he was hiding behind the tarp, John couldn’t see the skunk but he was pretty sure it hadn’t left the cage yet.

He continued to wait.

After a while, John peeked over the tarp, just barely, he was too nervous to pull it back far enough to see the cage.

He continued to wait. There seemed to be no movement from inside the cage.

Then he thought, “Maybe I looked away for a second, the little guy ran out, and I missed it completely.”

So he lowered the tarp a little bit more, peeked further over, and looked into the shiny black eyes of one mad and disoriented skunk. Before John could think, the skunk turned, fired, then proudly waddled off.

Too late John dropped the tarp and ran to his cabin.

The skunk was never seen again.

As Debbie says, never let them see you!