It's summer, and wildlife is moving (including skunks)

Not counting seconds, we will experience our longest daylight days of the year starting Saturday for six days, including June 24.

In the metro area there will be 15 hours and 37 minutes from sunrise to set those days. On June 25 we will lose our first minute of daylight.

This is a stretch of prime growth days. Farmers may see corn shoot up a foot in a week. Female eastern cottonwood trees continue to "spit" much cotton. Many garden roses are at their blooming best. Look for trumpeter swans with their young cygnets. Young house wrens, song sparrows, blue jays, northern cardinals, and Baltimore orioles are fledging.

And there is another mammal to consider.

Striped skunk young are traveling with their mothers. Striped skunks are found across North America from southern Canada into northern Mexico. They live and thrive in country and city environments throughout Minnesota.

Skunks are intelligent and usually good-natured, but they can be carriers of rabies. A normal skunk will just run away from you, but a rabid one could bite and even chase people into buildings. Having a glossy black coat with a white stripe between their eyes and two stripes down the back, skunks are active at night and omnivorous. Still, they seem to prefer insects and their larvae, mice, and carrion. During the day they sleep in dens, although in warm months they may bed down in vegetation. Dens are usually underground but may be found in stream or pond banks, in brush piles, or beneath outbuildings.

During cold winter months, several skunks may gather and share the same den. They are only the size of a house cat, but few wild animals want to tangle with skunks and their obnoxious odor. Skunks can spray their scent up to about 15 feet. Mammal-type predators such as coyotes, bobcats, badgers, and both red and gray foxes typically avoid them, unless they are starving. Some are killed by great horned owls and other birds of prey, which have a poor sense of smell.

Working as a naturalist for decades, I found that people had many questions that I could not answer no matter how much I prepared for presentations. One of those questions was "Can you eat a skunk?" I finally found the answer after years of wondering. Yes, humans can eat skunk meat, but the bacteria-filled small bag by the skunk's anus used to spray that horrendous odor must not break. A second question: How do you keep skunks out of a yard? Because skunks are nocturnal, and their eyes are sensitive to light, bright light or a motion sensor flood light will scare skunks away. They dislike the smell of citrus fruits, so place orange or lemon peels around the yard as a natural skunk repellent.

Jim Gilbert taught and worked as a naturalist for 50 years.