Mephitology (SKUNKS) Part 1 with Jerry Dragoo

It’s here. SKUNKS. My dream guest, Dr. Jerry Dragoo of the Institute for the Betterment of Skunks and Skunk Reputations is finally on Ologies, and I can barely contain myself. Come to Albuquerque to meet this Mephitological legend. In this very special and precious 2-part series, we’ll explore tiny baby skunks, spotted ones, cartoon skunks, skunk spray remedies, skunks and astronauts, how to get sprayed by a skunk, how *not* to get sprayed, what skunk spray tastes like, how much it costs to purchase, how their populations are doing, skunks vs. snakes, who eats skunks, island skunks, rehabbing skunks, pet skunks, actress skunks, mating trivia, and so much more. Also: the nipples you never want to meet.

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Alie Ward?

  Oh, hey, it's your brother's best friend's girlfriend, who is a chatbot, Ally Ward. And I have mentioned this ologist on the podcast numerous times. Every time someone asks, who's your dream guest? It's this guest. They founded the Institute for the Betterment of Skunks and Skunk Reputations. Got his PhD studying skunks at Texas A&M University, has been featured on PBS, various TV shows, high-profile periodicals, even has a character named after him in a children's book called A Boy Called Bat. His website notes that he is a methatologist. I have emailed, I have found old disconnected landlines and called in vain. I have found his spouse's work Instagrammed and DM'd to no avail.

• 0:45Alie Ward?

  I have begged a friend and a guest of the show, Dr. Ted Stankovich, to put in a good word, and I finally convinced him how much we needed him on the show, and we secured an episode. I traveled to New Mexico with your podmother, Jarrett, who made me a shirt with a drawing of a baby skunk and the words, "We meet at last." And I showed up at the appointed time and place 10 minutes early, which we spent scouring the parking lot for a glimpse of his legendary car. But before we meet this incredibly endearing guest and hop into part one of this two-part series, first, a quick thank you to everyone who sports Ologies on Patreon and leaves us reviews, such as this recent one from Brando, who wrote that "Ologies is the only podcast I would recommend to my best friend

• 1:28Alie Ward?

  and wish on my greatest enemy, since everyone deserves to learn." Also, thank you to sponsors of Ologies for enabling us to donate to a cause of the Ologies choosing each week. This episode is sponsored by Seed. Bloating, irregular bowel movement, gas. When your gut is off, it gets your attention. Seed's DS1 is a three-time award-winning probiotic, clinically shown to improve regularity, reduce bloating, and alleviate gas, so you can move and eat more freely. Take better care of your gut with Seed. Get 25% off with code 25OLOGIES at seed.com/ologies. These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. We have to say that.

• 2:13Alie Ward?

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• 2:44Alie Ward?

  Okay, so we're in New Mexico. I'm in a zoo parking lot. I have just spotted the elusive and deeply humble, the world's finest methatologist. Are you Jerry?

• 2:59Alie Ward?

  With lovely, wind-swept, silver-white hair and a tidy beard, he wore a Western shirt, slim jeans, and a golden belt buckle featuring a skunk. We're outside a zoo where he works and where his wife recently retired from as head vet tech. There's a walkie-talkie. It's crackling on his hip. The moment had finally arrived. We meet at last. Hello, sir. It's great to meet you. This is my husband, Jarrett.

• 3:28Speaker 01

  Jarrett.

• 3:29Alie Ward?

  It's great to meet you. We're obviously very excited.

• 3:31Speaker 01

  I'm sure you'll get over that.

• 3:35Alie Ward?

  I had Jarrett make me this shirt for today. That's a skunk.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, I recognize it.

• 3:42Alie Ward?

  I understand that you have a skunks license plate.

• 3:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, you want to see it?

• 3:45Alie Ward?

  Yeah. Of course I want to see it. An El Camino-looking Subaru, car in the front, truck bed in the back. It's a mullet of vehicles with a personalized license plate. Spectacular.

• 3:57Alie Ward?

  That's a great car.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  That's a place to clutch the transmission. The gear shifter fell apart, and then I had to take it back and it fell apart again.

• 4:04Alie Ward?

  Can I take a picture with you in front of your skunks license plate?

• 4:07Speaker 01

  I guess.

• 4:08Alie Ward?

  Yes.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Used to say, "I stop for road kills."

• 4:12Alie Ward?

  So we headed out of the summer Albuquerque sun and into an air-conditioned conference room to chat about tiny baby skunks, spotted ones, cartoon skunks, skunks and astronauts, how to get sprayed by a skunk, how not to get sprayed by a skunk, what skunk spray tastes like, how much it costs to purchase it, newly classified skunks, how their populations are doing, international fame because of skunks, skunks versus snakes, who eats skunks, island skunks, fieldwork on skunks, how to recover from a dousing, rehabbing skunks, can you have one as a pet, skunks on film, mating trivia, skunks making friends, and so much more in this very special and precious two-parter

• 4:55Alie Ward?

  with charming, dryly hilarious, and deeply knowledgeable methatologist, my dream guest, Dr. Jerry Dragoo. He/him.

• 5:24Speaker 01

  Jerry Dragoo.

• 5:25Alie Ward?

  Okay. I wasn't sure if I was saying it wrong all these years, this mythical skunk figure. And so here we are. We're in Albuquerque, and we're at the zoo here. But this isn't always what you've done, is work with skunks. And I'm curious how your life in New Mexico came to be where you're known as someone who started like a group for the betterment and the reputation of skunks. You obviously are a friend of skunks. How did you wind up doing that?

• 5:59Speaker 01

  I needed a website. Somebody published a magazine article and wanted to contact me, so I just created a website.

• 6:08Alie Ward?

  Dragoo.org?

• 6:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:09Alie Ward?

  Much more on that magazine article later. It's bonkers. And it's specifically the Dragoo Institute for the Betterment of Skunks and Skunk Reputations.

• 6:19Alie Ward?

  And do skunks need help with betterment and reputations?

• 6:24Speaker 01

  Probably.

• 6:25Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 6:26Speaker 01

  They do have a bad reputation for spraying, the odor, and then also rabies. They're a rabies vector. Is that all?

• 6:36Alie Ward?

  Do you remember what the magazine article was about?

• 6:38Speaker 01

  It was about me and skunks.

• 6:41Alie Ward?

  You needed a place where people could go?

• 6:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 6:45Alie Ward?

  Was it about the betterment of skunks and skunk reputations?

• 6:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's usually what I talk about, so.

• 6:51Alie Ward?

  No one's ever come to you to trash-talk skunks?

• 6:54Speaker 01

  Well, I've had a lot of people come up and tell me they've shot them and run them over and all this other kind of stuff, so.

• 6:59Alie Ward?

  How do you respond to that?

• 7:01Speaker 01

  People do what people do.

• 7:04Alie Ward?

  Do you think that that happens more where people have like chickens or livestock or something?

• 7:11Speaker 01

  Not so much livestock, but chickens possibly. If they can get in there, they might do some damage.

• 7:15Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 7:16Speaker 01

  And I had a woman who contacted me one time, said that she had 20 raccoons in her backyard, and there was a skunk that came in and was eating their food.

• 7:25Alie Ward?

  Eating the raccoon's food?

• 7:26Speaker 01

  Yeah, I said, "You don't have a skunk problem."

• 7:29Alie Ward?

  You have a raccoon problem. Do you say, "Maybe just get one cat, keep it inside. That'll do it."

• 7:38Speaker 01

  And actually, skunks and cats will interact a lot better than dogs and cats.

• 7:42Alie Ward?

  Is that because dogs are too excited to meet one?

• 7:45Speaker 01

  The excitement, the big lumbering, tail wagging, tongue wagging, that's kind of a threat, whereas cats just kind of wander up and do the same thing.

• 7:53Alie Ward?

  They're a little more coy.

• 7:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:55Alie Ward?

  What are they closer to from an evolutionary standpoint? Are they more feline? Are they more canine? Or is it just like weasel family right down the middle of the road?

• 8:04Speaker 01

  They're on the dog side of the order.

• 8:06Alie Ward?

  Oh, okay.

• 8:07Speaker 01

  They are caniformes on the dog side. And there's a group called the musteloid, musteloidia, that includes the skunks, red pandas, raccoons, and then weasels. And skunks were the first to branch off.

• 8:23Alie Ward?

  And is that why they had more time to just develop these amazing butt glands?

• 8:28Speaker 01

  All carnivores have same glands. And they use them for, most of them use them for territory marking, boundaries and all that kind of stuff, and just also advertising, "I'm here."

• 8:41Speaker 01

  And then skunks just kind of developed them as more of a defense mechanism.

• 8:44Alie Ward?

  They took the idea and ran with it.

• 8:47Speaker 01

  So, and I don't know if the early skunks were that way, and the ones that first branched off. I don't know when that actually developed, because that doesn't really fossilize that well.

• 8:55Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 8:56Speaker 01

  So I'm not actually sure when those glands became a defense mechanism.

• 8:59Alie Ward?

  And is it true that what comes out of a skunk's anal gland is like Gatorade yellow? Is it really bright colored?

• 9:07Speaker 01

  I call it anal sac amber.

• 9:09Alie Ward?

  Anal sac amber?

• 9:14Alie Ward?

  Is it thick or is it thin?

• 9:16Speaker 01

  Yes. The little ones, when they first start, it is more of a globular kind of a thing. And as they get older, it tends to be more liquid, but it is still, it's very oily.

• 9:29Alie Ward?

  Oh, it's, that's how it sticks to things?

• 9:31Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 9:32Alie Ward?

  Is it oily?

• 9:32Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 9:33Alie Ward?

  Oh, because I've had to do my dog's butt glands before, and that wasn't fun.

• 9:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, whenever you have to express those things, it's pretty nasty for

• 9:42Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 9:42Speaker 01

  all carnivores.

• 9:43Alie Ward?

  Do they have bigger sacs to hold it? Because like, I don't know how much comes out.

• 9:48Speaker 01

  Relative to their body size, yes.

• 9:52Alie Ward?

  Yeah, like size of a plum?

• 9:53Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 9:54Alie Ward?

  Say? Oh, so they, they've got some fuel in the tank?

• 9:56Speaker 01

  We pulled about 60 cc's out of one gland.

• 10:01Alie Ward?

  That's quite a lot. That's a lot of lip filler, I imagine. Like, if people need that as a syringe full. So 60 cc that amounts to about 12 teaspoons. Or 60 injections of lip filler. Now, if you want to, you can buy pure skunk essence, straight from the gland. The Minnesota Trap Line Products website shows it'll set you back about 60 bucks. Now, 60 cc of lip filler, however, could cost you $48,000. So that's one point for skunks. And so, did you grow up going outdoors a lot? Were you always an outdoorsy kid? Were you someone who was looking at the stars or looking for bugs under rocks?

• 10:46Alie Ward?

  Like, how did nature play such a big part in your life?

• 10:49Speaker 01

  I spent most of my life indoors.

• 10:52Alie Ward?

  Really?

• 10:52Speaker 01

  Yeah. My dad was in the Air Force. When we were overseas, we went camping a lot. But mainly it was just camping, having fun, going out and doing stuff.

• 11:01Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  It wasn't until I got to Albuquerque, when he retired, that I actually started going for hiking up in the mountains and everything. I used to fall down all the time because I was used to walking on flat surfaces. And so I'd go out walking, trip and fall, go out walking, trip and fall. But I always liked watching a lot of animal shows on TV. And I said, well, I think I just want to work with animals.

• 11:21Alie Ward?

  I loved those, too. Back when the nature channels were documentaries about animals and not just like a pawn shop or, you know, ice road truckers. I miss the documentaries about animals.

• 11:35Speaker 01

  So I used to watch those all the time. I said, yeah. And then it's like, oh, what can I do? I was like, well, I can be a vet, I guess. But most of the vets were dog and cat. Kind of like your basic animals here, so.

• 11:47Alie Ward?

  But you mentioned your wife was a vet tech?

• 11:48Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 11:49Alie Ward?

  Yeah? And so, did you meet through skunks? Or how did you guys meet?

• 11:55Speaker 01

  She's gonna kill me.

• 11:56Alie Ward?

  Oh, yeah?

• 11:57Speaker 01

  She stalked me for two years.

• 11:59Alie Ward?

  Well, the best of us do, Jerry Drago. I stalked you for six. I'm not gonna get in line. So Jerry and Gwen Drago have been together for decades, having met through lab work at Texas A&M University. And the way that he talks about Gwen is still very sweet and crushy. What are her version of events?

• 12:21Speaker 01

  Oh, you'd have to ask her. I think, I'm sure they're different.

• 12:25Alie Ward?

  How long have you guys been together?

• 12:26Speaker 01

  34 years and 24 days.

• 12:31Alie Ward?

  Oh, who's counting?

• 12:33Speaker 01

  Well, I have an Excel file that I'm doing day stuff on. I just looked at it this morning.

• 12:38Alie Ward?

  Oh, I guess so. It's working out so far?

• 12:39Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:40Alie Ward?

  Yeah. And she's also, obviously, an animal person?

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 12:44Alie Ward?

  Right?

• 12:44Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 12:45Alie Ward?

  Once you left Texas A&M, like, when did you kind of narrow your focus to certain animals or, you know, certain research? You've also worked around the space program. How does this mosaic of your history come together?

• 13:00Speaker 01

  So, in 89, I was working on my PhD. And one of my former students, who was in the mammal class, was working as an animal control officer in the Houston area. And she called me up and said, "We've got a skunk problem at the Johnson Space Center. Can you come and help?" I said, "Yeah, sure." So I showed up, went to the Johnson Space Center, got me a badge, and went through the security thing and everything. And I'm wearing holy jeans and cut-off Levi jacket, baseball cap. I had goggles around my neck.

• 13:35Speaker 01

  Had my running shoes on, drove my truck onto their site and spent the night. I guess these skunks were going under the astronaut quarters, astronaut offices.

• 13:44Alie Ward?

  Oh, my god.

• 13:45Speaker 01

  And they were creating problems. And so, they wanted to know if I could do something. So I walked over there, looked where they're at, and I sifted the dirt around and then kind of smoothed it out so I could see if there were footprints.

• 13:55Alie Ward?

  Oh.

• 13:56Speaker 01

  And then I started wandering around, looking around. And I found scat. And then I said, "Okay, I'm gonna set a trap here," and walked around. "I'm gonna set a trap here, around here, and I'm gonna set a trap here." And then I just spent the night kind of wandering around. And I went back to the hole. You could see that the animal had come out. And then, probably about, I don't know, 3:30 in the morning, see this thing traipsing back towards the offices. And I just made a beeline for it, started running after it, and just reached down and grabbed it by the tail, picked it up, put it in a carrier and caught it.

• 14:27Alie Ward?

  Did it spray you?

• 14:28Speaker 01

  Of course, yeah. Skunks do that. When you go running after them, that's what they do. There's kooks.

• 14:35Alie Ward?

  I don't know. I thought maybe you had some magic. So was there only one skunk under there?

• 14:41Speaker 01

  Yeah, well, just the one that we caught. And I showed them how, in the future, they can look for things and blocking up the holes and the times of years they should do it and all that kind of stuff, so.

• 14:50Alie Ward?

  Is that where they like to live? Do they like to burrow under things? Like, where are they living?

• 14:54Speaker 01

  They like when other things burrow for them.

• 14:57Alie Ward?

  Oh, got it. Okay.

• 14:59Speaker 01

  They can dig their own, but they'll usually find whatever's available. And a lot of times, they'll get under sheds, under buildings, off stuff like that, so.

• 15:06Alie Ward?

  What about in nature? Is there like a badger hole and they go, "Oh, it's empty," or a gopher tortoise hole or something?

• 15:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, more likely a tortoise hole, but a badger might give them some trouble. What in the hell is happening? Is that a badger fighting three skunks? Oh, phew. Yeah, any hole that they can get into, squirrel holes, they'll widen them out a little bit.

• 15:28Alie Ward?

  Do they ever, like, scratch out their own? Or is too much work?

• 15:33Speaker 01

  Well, they can. A lot of times, they may just hunker down close to the top of the ground. But depending on the climate, what time of year it is, where they're at. When mom's kicking the youngsters out, they probably just spend the night on the ground. And then eventually, once they find their home range, they'll start making more permanent residents.

• 15:50Alie Ward?

  Do they have roommates? Or do they live in their own little holes?

• 15:53Speaker 01

  Yes, depends on where you are.

• 15:56Alie Ward?

  Do different species do it differently?

• 15:58Speaker 01

  I'm thinking mainly the striped skunks. Up north, they will tend to den together. A lot of females, maybe a male will be in that group where it's colder. And so they're conserving body heat by forming these little sleeping groups, I guess.

• 16:12Alie Ward?

  Yeah, those little cuddle puddles.

• 16:14Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 16:14Alie Ward?

  That's what they call them in science. And so, we're in New Mexico. Are they a North and South American species? Like, where are skunks?

• 16:24Speaker 01

  In North America, there's several spotted skunks, striped and hooded skunks, hog-nosed skunk, the white-backed hog-nosed skunk. In North America, in Central America, we have hooded skunk and some striped skunks. And then you get another species of hog-nosed skunk, a striped hog-nosed skunk. And then you go all the way down to Argentina, you've got another hog-nosed skunk down there.

• 16:44Alie Ward?

  Does a hog-nosed skunk have a nose like a hog?

• 16:47Speaker 01

  It's kind of, it's elongated. They do a lot of rooting around, digging up and everything, so.

• 16:51Alie Ward?

  Is that what that's for?

• 16:52Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:54Alie Ward?

  What are they eating, skunks in general? Because I saw a question from a listener about, it's chickens getting eaten. And I, for some reason, thought, "Skunks were out there nibbling on grass." And maybe that's because they're Bambi, maybe because they're so cute. I know that different species eat different things. But in general, are they mostly carnivores or are they omnivores? What's going on?

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Well, they are in the order Carnivora. So obviously, they're probably going to eat something like that. But they are kind of omnivorous. And they will eat bugs, insects, vegetables, fruits, all that kind of stuff. The striped skunks, spotted skunks tend to be a little more carnivorous, but they will still eat all that same stuff. I mean, when we're feeding them, we feed them corn and peas and carrots and some turkey meat in there and stuff like that, so.

• 17:36Alie Ward?

  Before we started recording, Jerry mentioned an itty-bitty baby skunk who landed in his care. You mentioned Thumbelina, who thought she was a pet. What does a skunk who thinks they're a pet, how do they behave?

• 17:49Speaker 01

  Very pet-like.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, Thumbelina came to us really, really tiny. That's obviously how she got her name. And we had another animal that was like three weeks younger than she was, like, three times as big. We were afraid to release her that season because, oh, she's not gonna make it like this. And so we just ended up keeping her. And again, if you're gonna rehab animals, I don't recommend you start keeping your animals. But again, we kind of sort of knew what we were doing.

• 18:14Alie Ward?

  Yeah, yeah.

• 18:15Speaker 01

  But my wife's a vet tech, so we had a little bit of, yeah. And so we just started taking care of her. And then she'd come out, we'd give her treats and make little toys for her to run around. And of course, there was a couple other animals with her. If you watch the PBS Nature Show, there's a skunk in there that is interacting with a rattlesnake.

• 18:34Speaker 02

  When this rattler smells what's passing by, it recognizes a threat and goes silent to avoid detection.

• 18:43Speaker 02

  In a direct confrontation, it's the rattlesnake that is likely to lose.

• 18:48Speaker 01

  You know, it's TV interacting.

• 18:49Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 18:50Speaker 01

  That's Thumbelina. They rely so heavily on those scent glands, they're usually not concerned that anything's really gonna bite.

• 18:56Speaker 03

  Bother them. The skunk may be on the side of the road foraging or getting ready to cross. Big car comes along at a high speed. They're likely just to put their tail up and spray.

• 19:07Speaker 01

  There's a car coming down the dirt road and she's on the side of the road? That's Thumbelina.

• 19:13Alie Ward?

  So she's an actress?

• 19:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 19:16Alie Ward?

  I could have died out there, but I'm an actress.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  And unfortunately, she is no longer with us. She had a pancreatic tumor and it was creating, she was producing lots of insulin. But we got her on a drug that kind of slows down the insulin production. And we put her on four small meals a day. And so that she was constantly eating, but also slowed down her insulin production. She lived another skunk's lifetime.

• 19:42Alie Ward?

  How long do they live?

• 19:44Speaker 01

  The average is like three, four years. But again, that's when you think about the bulk of the population is these young ones and those don't ever make it. Once they get to adulthood, they can go for several years. So she was about a little over eight years old, I think, when she finally went.

• 19:59Alie Ward?

  Did you bond over that?

• 20:01Speaker 01

  We bonded a long time before that happened, yeah. Yeah, she would sit in her lap and...

• 20:06Alie Ward?

  Did you have to de-center her?

• 20:07Speaker 01

  No.

• 20:08Alie Ward?

  No? She just didn't spray you?

• 20:09Speaker 01

  We, we de-centered a couple of animals early on. But again, they only spray if they fear for their life.

• 20:14Alie Ward?

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 20:15Speaker 01

  Some are easier to scare than others.

• 20:18Alie Ward?

  That makes sense.

• 20:19Speaker 01

  I think it was actually Thumbelina who came in. We were taking care of a baby kangaroo. And we were bottle feeding, and we had this little coat hanger with a little pouch. And the kangaroo was sitting in the pouch. And so we were hand raising this thing. And Gwen was feeding it in the bathroom. And Thumbelina snuck under the bathroom door. And boom, there's a kangaroo and there's a skunk. Boom. That's probably the first time in 40 million years that a kangaroo had ever been sprayed by a skunk.

• 20:44Alie Ward?

  I was gonna say, like, what's happening here? Like, not prepared. So yeah, no skunks down in Australia. I would feel bad for you, but you have wombats. But skunks tend to live in the Americas, from Canada down to South America. And the striped, hooded, and hog-nosed skunks are all about the same size. Roughly 10 pounds or four and a half kilos, but with some variation overlap between the species. Like, think of a Pomeranian with short legs and an odorous onboard weapon. Now striped skunks, they have a very distinct V of white fur along their back. But in the wild, they could be all black or all white. There's variations.

• 21:29Alie Ward?

  And their species is Mephitus mephitus, which means stinky stink. Mean. Now hooded skunks, they're on the smaller size. They can have two white gracing stripes, or they might have one thick one, starting at the head, hence hooded. They live in Mexico and they have the softest fur of most skunks. Don't put that to the test. Now, there are four species of the hog-nosed skunks. And they range from Texas all the way down to Patagonia. And their stripe patterns can vary a lot, but they have the distinction of a long, pink, a little upturned pencil eraser-looking nose. They're hard to look at because you want to kiss them on the nosey, but once again, you cannot.

• 22:14Alie Ward?

  Now, we're going to chat more about spotted skunks. There are seven recognized species. They live throughout North America and Central America, even on a few islands off the coast of California. And they're the smallest of the Mephitidae critters. Most are about the size of a chunky squirrel. But there is, there is a pygmy version. It's along the western coast of Mexico, and it is palm-sized. It could live in your pocket if you were a Disney princess who liked to smell bad. Okay, so that is all of them, right? Nope. In 1997, a Journal of Memology paper titled "Systematics of Mustelid-like Carnivores" was Dr. Dragoo's landmark paper.

• 22:59Alie Ward?

  He wanted to call it a skunk by any other name, but his advisor advised against anything fun or catchy. But this work alongside colleague Dr. Rodney Honeycutt was a breakthrough for skunks, reclassifying a creature known as the stink badger. Okay, stink badger. Stink badger, what's up?

• 23:19Speaker 01

  There's two different species in the Philippines. If they've been around for 40 million years, they could have covered a lot of territory and that was just an isolated population there.

• 23:28Alie Ward?

  Yeah. What is a stink badger?

• 23:29Speaker 01

  It's in the skunk family.

• 23:31Alie Ward?

  Is it a skunk or is it a badger?

• 23:32Speaker 01

  It's a skunk. It looks a lot like a hog-nosed skunk.

• 23:36Alie Ward?

  Oh, why do they call it a stink badger?

• 23:37Speaker 01

  Well, because they also look like badgers. The hog-nosed skunks are more badger-like. They got really muscular forearms and...

• 23:44Alie Ward?

  So it is a skunk, it's not a badger?

• 23:46Speaker 01

  It is not a badger.

• 23:46Alie Ward?

  It's just called a stink badger?

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, because it used to be, it used to be in that subfamily.

• 23:51Alie Ward?

  Oh, it's got a, it's got a snoot nose. It's so cute. And so those, are those only in the Philippines?

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Yeah, Sumatra, Java, that area.

• 24:03Alie Ward?

  And they still have the anal glands and everything?

• 24:04Speaker 01

  Well, I sent a colleague out there, Adam Ferguson, I'm going to mention his name because he had one task. I sent him there to look for those nipples on the scent glands. I didn't actually send him, he was with the field museum.

• 24:19Alie Ward?

  You say, listen, listen, while you're out there, do, check out these butt nipples.

• 24:23Speaker 01

  I sent him to Africa to do the same thing with the striped polecat, the weasels, to see if they had the nipples associated with, because they're black and white, they look a lot like spotted skunks. But he, he didn't do it.

• 24:34Alie Ward?

  Someone, you think you can trust someone while you're out there. Hey, do me a solid, will you? Get up in the butt and check for me.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  You really know who your friends are when you...

• 24:47Alie Ward?

  It's like, can I put you as my emergency contact? And will you check for nipples on the butt glands? No hard feelings, of course. In fact, to this day, Jerry is good friends with Dr. Adam Ferguson and Dr. Robert Deller. The three of them meet up every week and are collaborating on a skunk book. And Jerry warned me, however, don't go to the bookstore tomorrow because they're nowhere near done writing it yet. Dr. Dragoo has taught me skunks is worth the wait. But yeah, stink badgers, actually skunks, and they are small boys with kind of tiger striped rumps, they got stumpy tails, and they have a cute little rat face nose. In the Philippines, they're called patat or tuldoo.

• 25:29Alie Ward?

  And those words derive from stink and finger. And I had never seen a picture of a stink badger. And unfortunately, I am in love with them as well. But I promised that we would address the spotties. And the spotted skunks, adorable. Are they're smaller?

• 25:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're about half the size, maybe.

• 25:50Alie Ward?

  So a spotted skunk is like the size of a kitten, almost, like as long as a kitten?

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Try not to compare skunks to cats.

• 25:56Alie Ward?

  That's a good point, that's a good point. We'll say a bread roll, we'll say a subway sandwich. When I see a picture of a spotted skunk, it looks like a cartoon. They're so cute. Jerry pulled up his phone's camera roll, which has a lot of skunk pictures.

• 26:10Speaker 01

  Um, let's see. Okay, there's one doing a handstand.

• 26:15Alie Ward?

  Oh, God, they're so cute. They're so cute. It's doing a handstand. You're showing me this picture. It's got a few bands of spots. It's got a ponytail on its butt that looks like a pom-pom. It's doing a handstand.

• 26:30Speaker 01

  That's his tail.

• 26:32Alie Ward?

  It looks like a, it's inverted because it's doing a yoga pose. Is this a threat display? Because I'm not threatened, I'm charmed, utterly.

• 26:41Speaker 01

  It makes him look bigger.

• 26:42Alie Ward?

  Yeah, it does.

• 26:43Speaker 01

  And maybe there's eye spots up there on his rump? And it kind of makes it like, okay, now if that's the head, I'm not sure I want to tackle this.

• 26:51Alie Ward?

  So a little two-pound squirrel-sized bread roll, spotty, fluffy-tailed spotted skunk uses the handstand to, one, probably show off because it's a pretty sick move. And two, appear like a bigger, giant-headed creature covered in eyes, like a biblically accurate angel with a terribly smelly butt. If I flip my eyes and I make it look like that is a monster with eyes and a huge head, that is terrifying. I'm not gonna, if the legs are the arms coming after me, that is terrifying. But I know it's game, so I just can only say, that's adorable, keep trying. Are spotted skunks, are they endangered? Are they threatened? Or are they just more rare in general?

• 27:36Speaker 01

  I would have to say yes again. The eastern species were considered being listed. And so they've been doing research on that. And then you got the island species in California.

• 27:49Alie Ward?

  Oh, yes, on the Catalina Islands, right? So yes, news to me, as a Southern Californian, there are smaller, shorter-tailed spotted skunks chilling off the coast, right off the coast, in some coastal islands, living their best lives for the one to two brief years they survive in the wild. But according to a 2021 paper in Southeastern Naturalist titled "Reexamination of the Purported Rapid Population Decline of Plain Spotted Skunks in the Mid-20th Century." Some populations of spotted skunks have declined by nearly 90% since the 1940s from... Yep, yes, of course, humans.

• 28:29Alie Ward?

  So we bring animals that have diseases and we spray pesticides, alter local ecology for agriculture, and I guess some of us hate skunks. Not me. Is it mostly habitat loss? Or is it people getting freaked out and killing them?

• 28:47Speaker 01

  It's probably a little of both.

• 28:51Speaker 01

  A lot of the farmers used to like these guys because they would hang around silo, grain silos and eat the mice. And so they're great mousers. And so the farmer, or the, yeah, let's go ahead and keep those guys around.

• 29:00Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 29:01Speaker 01

  But they're also less likely to be out in the daytime. You're more likely to see the striped skunks out during the day and hog nose skunks a little bit bigger. And these guys are a little more secretive. They're also three dimensional. So they go up. They're not just on the ground. They're also, they're very good climbers.

• 29:16Alie Ward?

  Do they live in trees? Are they arboreal or they're just capable of it?

• 29:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, they're capable of it.

• 29:21Alie Ward?

  I didn't realize that because I only see skunks scuttling around the ground. Let's talk stripes for a minute. Are they black with white stripes? Are they white with black stripes? Or, you know, they say like, polar bears are not actually white. They just have clear hair. What's going on under their fur? Would you see stripes if they shaved their whole body?

• 29:46Speaker 01

  They are born pink and white.

• 29:48Alie Ward?

  Oh.

• 29:49Speaker 01

  So the pink is where the black hairs are coming in. White's where the white hairs come in.

• 29:53Alie Ward?

  Oh, my gosh. And is that evolutionarily to tell their foes, like, don't mess with me?

• 30:02Speaker 01

  That's what I was brought up to believe.

• 30:05Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 30:06Speaker 01

  Um, it is just kind of a warning, but it also, it could break up their pattern. In, in a moonlit night and you're going through the forest area, you'll see, it'd be harder to see them.

• 30:17Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 30:17Speaker 01

  But then if you come right up on them, boom, boom, there's black and white. I don't want to mess with that.

• 30:22Alie Ward?

  Is it true that the spotted skunks aren't spotted, but they have stripes that are broken up or something?

• 30:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, broken up spots. Yeah. There's about a series of six different stripes that are broken up.

• 30:31Alie Ward?

  So is that like plaid? Are they plaid kind of with like, you know how some stripes going this way, some stripes going that way?

• 30:38Speaker 01

  Plaid skunks. I don't think that name's going to catch on.

• 30:40Alie Ward?

  I don't think it's going to catch on. So, yes, spotted skunks are first striped and then striped the other way to create sort of a marbled tie dye, a black and white pattern, which works kind of like eye spots on a moth. I like to think of them as gingham rather than striped myself. It's so scary. And if you were to gaze at photos of baby skunks, you would see little naked squirrel looking squirmers with kind of grayish, black skin and sunburned looking pink where all the white hair will grow in. Ugh.

• 31:19Speaker 01

  So cute.

• 31:20Alie Ward?

  And is it true that they have little pink bare feet? They have like little cute little pink feet?

• 31:24Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 31:25Alie Ward?

  Oh, God, that's so cute. I'm curious about some of your skunk encounters in the wild. What does your field work look like? Are you doing it mostly locally? Are you having to travel for it? Are you setting up camera traps and then analyzing them later? Like, what does field work look like if you're a skunk scientist?

• 31:45Speaker 01

  It depends kind of on what you're doing. Um, my work was primarily genetics. And I was also interested in population genetics. So I needed samples. And there weren't a lot of samples in museums. Well, that's not true. I mean, there's a lot of skeletal material. And I've looked at skulls and measured skulls and compared populations. But in order to do the genetic work, I actually needed genetic samples. And so that's, I had to go out and collect them.

• 32:13Alie Ward?

  Mm hmm.

• 32:14Speaker 01

  I spent a lot of time in South Texas looking for them. Spent some time in New Mexico. And pretty much any time I was going out, I was looking for something.

• 32:25Alie Ward?

  And you showed me your car, which is an awesome Subaru Baja. So it's got a four door, but it also has a, a truck bed in the back. And you mentioned to me in the parking lot that that was helpful for having skunk traps in there.

• 32:38Speaker 01

  Yep. Putting it, you had to put your field gear in there and pack it up.

• 32:43Alie Ward?

  If you are out doing field work to collect some samples, are you setting them and then waiting all night? Like, do you have a thermos of coffee? Are you coming back in the morning to see if you had any customers overnight? Do you have to be a night owl?

• 32:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. In the middle of the night, I'm driving around looking for skunks because that's when they're out. That's their time being out. But I, I would spend a lot of my time driving around.

• 33:04Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 33:04Speaker 01

  Because I trapping, you can set them and you may or may not catch anything.

• 33:08Alie Ward?

  Mm hmm.

• 33:09Speaker 01

  And then driving around, if I see something, I can run it down.

• 33:12Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 33:13Speaker 01

  And then I'm specific to that species. I don't have to worry about catching cats or opossums or raccoons or foxes, anything like that. So.

• 33:21Alie Ward?

  Do you ever have to sample the genomics of roadkill?

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 33:26Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 33:26Speaker 01

  That's I had.

• 33:26Alie Ward?

  That is what you do.

• 33:27Speaker 01

  I had the bumper stickers and I stopped for roadkill.

• 33:29Alie Ward?

  You do stop for roadkill. I talked to an opossum expert who has to hole punch, take a hole punch out of the ear when she sees roadkill. And she wears a safety vest so people don't ask her any questions. So I should ask, when it comes to their populations, how are they doing? Do they do better in urban areas where there's plenty of places, sheds to hide under, there's oranges falling in people's backyards, there's garbage? Are they starting to thrive more in urban settings?

• 33:57Speaker 01

  The striped skunks do. They tend to do well in, in human environments.

• 34:03Alie Ward?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:03Speaker 01

  And for just that reason, food, water, shelter, that's what they're looking for.

• 34:06Alie Ward?

  Mm hmm.

• 34:06Speaker 01

  And then mates as well. And they can find all that in a small area. They don't need as big of a, a home range.

• 34:12Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 34:13Speaker 01

  They don't have to go as far. And so populations will increase in those situations.

• 34:17Alie Ward?

  Are they good for eating slugs in your garden and stuff?

• 34:20Speaker 01

  Yes. A lot of times when they tear up gardens, they're not actually going for the plants or the roots. They're going for the grubs that are in the ground. So you know you've got grubs if you've got skunks that are digging up your garden.

• 34:31Alie Ward?

  Is a compost heap fun for them? Because there's got to be a lot of grubs in there, right?

• 34:35Speaker 01

  There's probably stuff that they can dig around in there.

• 34:37Alie Ward?

  Oh.

• 34:38Speaker 01

  And then, of course, the ripe fruits and vegetables, they'll eat that stuff. Usually if it's falling off, they'll eat that too.

• 34:44Alie Ward?

  I wonder, well, Ivy, I thought this was really sweet, was how do I protect them from the road traffic? Can I divert them back to my ground nesting yellow jackets? Which I imagine they like to eat ground nesting yellow jackets?

• 34:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, if they can get them.

• 34:57Alie Ward?

  And they get them?

• 34:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 34:58Alie Ward?

  Do they get stung or their fur so thick?

• 35:00Speaker 01

  Their fur may be thick, but again, they've got the noses and the feet and all that kind of stuff. So, yeah, they'll, they'll eat bees and things like that too.

• 35:06Alie Ward?

  But is there a good way to protect them from road traffic?

• 35:11Speaker 01

  The problem with road traffic is that, I mean, skunks will obviously try to run away first, but if something's coming at them that fast, they're going to start stomping and threatening to spray because that's what they would do with a predator coming at them. One year we went to the Texas mammal meetings and I was, we were determining, well, what's running around? Are there's boys running around or girls? Because it's that time of year.

• 35:33Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 35:33Speaker 01

  So let's do a little study. And so I stopped at every roadkill and checking the gender. I sound like Kennedy Jr.

• 35:42Alie Ward?

  No.

• 35:43Speaker 01

  That's not what I was doing. I was doing science, though.

• 35:48Speaker 01

  But I, it turned out that there were equal numbers of males and females.

• 35:52Alie Ward?

  Really?

• 35:52Speaker 01

  And so I figured, well, then both genders are out looking for mates at that time of year.

• 35:56Alie Ward?

  Oh.

• 35:56Speaker 01

  Again, small sample size, one road trip.

• 35:59Alie Ward?

  But there are some data points.

• 36:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 36:01Alie Ward?

  You're at some data points.

• 36:02Speaker 01

  Yeah. I should probably publish that. So then it makes it sound like I was doing science.

• 36:06Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 36:08Speaker 01

  As opposed to just being creepy.

• 36:10Alie Ward?

  Just flipping them over, checking them out. Um, that reminds me, in skunks, how do you know if one's a male or female? Do you have to get up close and personal? Or can you tell from a distance?

• 36:20Speaker 01

  You might be able to tell from the back with an adult. You might see the testicles, depending on if it's breeding season or not.

• 36:25Alie Ward?

  But they're not going to have like a different stripe pattern?

• 36:28Speaker 01

  No, no, no. Yeah, the stripe won't tell you anything. It's just going to be the genitalia. And that's.

• 36:33Alie Ward?

  So if you're up that close, then you've got other things to worry about.

• 36:36Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 36:38Alie Ward?

  Any advice for someone who's like, I think I got a skunk in my yard. I'm going to call an exterminator?

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Um, I would look into seeing if there's an alternative than an exterminator. I know we've got a couple places around here that will do relocation kind of stuff. And I, I know there was one rehabber that had, he would say if it's an animal emergency, they wouldn't charge. If it's a people emergency, they would charge. And so if you say, hey, I've got a skunk in my yard, I want it out. Okay, that's going to cost you money.

• 37:07Alie Ward?

  Mm hmm.

• 37:08Speaker 01

  But if there's an animal that's, you know, limping, it's got back legs hurt or something, they would come out and they would rescue the animal and not, not charge for that. So.

• 37:17Alie Ward?

  So look into relocation.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 37:18Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 37:18Speaker 01

  If you can get a rehabber, so.

• 37:20Alie Ward?

  It's not their fault that you're living on their land?

• 37:23Speaker 01

  The problem is, I think a lot of the states where they say you can't rehab them, you have to kill them, that's when people take it upon themselves to take care of the animal. And that's usually not good for either the animal or the person taking care of them.

• 37:36Alie Ward?

  Oh.

• 37:36Speaker 01

  Because if you don't know what to expect, I got people email me, how do I keep my skunk from digging up the carpet, put down tile? Because skunks dig, they're natural diggers. They're going to be doing that behavior because that's part of who they are.

• 37:48Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 37:49Speaker 01

  And so you've got to be aware of that. And so again, if you don't know what you're doing, you shouldn't have pets.

• 37:55Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 37:56Speaker 01

  Not skunks, not cats, not dogs.

• 37:57Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 37:58Speaker 01

  Not children. If you don't know what you're doing, you shouldn't have children.

• 38:02Alie Ward?

  And also if you're not prepared to, to deal with how a wild animal will react to an indoor environment.

• 38:10Speaker 01

  And the younger ones are easier to, and you have to socialize them in order to get them used to other people and everything. But again, once you start getting other people coming inside, if it ever bites anybody, it's over.

• 38:22Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 38:22Speaker 01

  You probably won't be able to get a vet that will vaccinate them because it's probably going to be illegal and it's off label. And so the vaccine will work, but it's off label. It hasn't actually been tested on enough animals to say that it's.

• 38:37Alie Ward?

  But yeah.

• 38:38Speaker 01

  A lot of times when they're doing the, the trap, vaccinate, release, and they were doing that in Flagstaff and they did it up in Ontario. And so they would catch an animal, vaccinate it, and then release it in order to try to stop the spread. And so, yeah, it was working.

• 38:53Alie Ward?

  But there's no way to do that through a pill or a food or a treat, right? It's gotta be injection.

• 38:58Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 38:59Alie Ward?

  Yeah. Iris asked, they said, I work at a farm. When skunks occasionally get in and kill chickens, they go for the head or the butt first, and they usually leave the rest. Did you ever see that at any of your work? Or is that just a weird skunk that they've got?

• 39:10Speaker 01

  No, and I'm, I'm wondering, because I know the striped skunks are less likely to do that. Spotted skunks, maybe?

• 39:17Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 39:18Speaker 01

  And since the chicken's a lot bigger than a spotted skunk, it'd be easier just to take them out.

• 39:21Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 39:21Speaker 01

  And I've, I've seen spotted skunks in rattlesnake hybernaculums, and they have taken out all the snakes and just left them there.

• 39:30Alie Ward?

  What?

• 39:31Speaker 01

  They needed the dead inside, so.

• 39:33Alie Ward?

  Wait, so are they, they've displaced the snakes?

• 39:38Speaker 01

  Yeah. There was a guy doing research on rattlesnake venom. And he was looking, especially in wood rats and stuff like that. Things are more likely to be attacked by snakes. But we also, I had a story of a hog nose skunk that got bit on the face. And of course, he didn't survive that. It could have been for a lot of reasons. It could have been the venom, or it could have been the fact that his whole face swelled up and he couldn't breathe. So, hard to know for sure what killed it, but that's not definitive. That's a possibility, but.

• 40:06Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  But again, rattlesnakes will eat skunks and skunks will eat rattlesnakes. It just depends on.

• 40:12Alie Ward?

  Can you imagine getting in the middle of that fight?

• 40:14Speaker 01

  I had a young bull snake in a terrarium. My, the first skunk I ever had, her name was Penelope. Called her Penny for short. One cent.

• 40:24Alie Ward?

  One cent?

• 40:30Speaker 01

  She saw that snake, he was on the, on the ground one day, I was cleaning something up, and she's, and it was gone.

• 40:36Alie Ward?

  But wait, back to Iris's chickens. I'm sorry. Iris, once again, asked, in essence, guess what? Chicken butt. But why first? They go for the head or the butt first? And then they usually leave the rest? Does Jerry tend to encounter this? Or does Iris just have one little weird freak skunk around?

• 40:54Speaker 01

  The first chickens I know may not have been a skunk. I don't know.

• 40:58Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 40:58Speaker 01

  It's possible they could have. A lot of times they'll get in there and just, I don't know why they would be doing that, because usually they like to eat.

• 41:03Alie Ward?

  I don't know. I was gonna say like that, why leave the meat there? But, well, they are called pole cats, right? Aren't they?

• 41:11Speaker 01

  Mainly deal with poultry, I think.

• 41:13Alie Ward?

  Poultry?

• 41:14Speaker 01

  And spotted skunks are called civet cats. They're neither civets nor cats.

• 41:18Alie Ward?

  Does that ever fry your legs, ever chap your hide? No?

• 41:22Speaker 01

  They were called that long before I came along.

• 41:24Alie Ward?

  Okay, so that's not your fault, or your problem. Um, I understand that Chicago means skunk land. Is that true?

• 41:30Speaker 01

  That's what I have read. It has, I think, is to do with the Native American language. And what it meant, I think it had more to do with the, I'm not sure if it's the smell, the breeze, or there's a, a skunk plant there.

• 41:43Alie Ward?

  According to the Encyclopedia of Chicago, it's all true. The Miha Mi peoples of the region used a similar sounding word to describe the wild leeks that grew along the watershed of what's now called the Chicago River. And they used the same word to describe skunks. They were way ahead of the organic chemists, who later discovered that, yes, leeks, onions and garlic, they get their odors from sulfur-based compounds called thiols, also abundant in skunk spray. Now, when colonizers landed, they jotted down some notes about skunks.

• 42:18Speaker 01

  So when they first get to North America in the 1600s, they called them children of the devil.

• 42:24Alie Ward?

  The skunks?

• 42:25Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 42:25Alie Ward?

  Children of the devil?

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Children of the devil.

• 42:28Alie Ward?

  But when Europeans explored the fertile and bountiful lands of North America, many animals and peoples were classified as things like, quote, remorseless devils and incarnate fiends. But historically, it seems that those terms were reserved for the ones who dared resist or fight back. So keep that in mind. While we've got the devil on the horn, the name Mephistopheles, who's a devil and a trickster from some Germanic and Faustian stories, is said to come from the Greek words for he who shuns the light. But there is a Latin-based word, mephitic, means the stinking vapors from swamps and decay. The words are close. Some argue it's a coincidence.

• 43:13Alie Ward?

  Personally, I prefer the stinky devil etymology over just a light shy guy. That seems a little weak. I understand that there's an ancient Italian goddess named Mepetus, and she's the goddess of foul-smelling, noxious gasses and subterranean vapors. And if that's not my next Halloween costume, I don't know what it is, because she sounds like a badass.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  Well, there's also in South America, the 14 codex in the, what's it, the 1500s, maybe? Where they're translating the Aztec language and the Spanish language, and they were writing the same stories side by side.

• 43:49Alie Ward?

  Oh.

• 43:49Speaker 01

  And so you're kind of learning the Aztec tradition in the Spanish. Of course, I've read the English.

• 43:54Alie Ward?

  Yeah.

• 43:54Speaker 01

  Translation. And they referred to skunks when they were spraying. They said it was Tezcatli Poca, who was a goddess of mischief and trouble and all that kind of stuff. It was breaking wind.

• 44:08Alie Ward?

  Pardon me? You know.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Far jokes are always funny.

• 44:12Alie Ward?

  Funny. And it's sulfuric compounds, right? That are common to all of those.

• 44:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:16Alie Ward?

  And in weed and in skunk cabbage. I understand there, it's all similar.

• 44:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:20Alie Ward?

  We did an episode on weed, and we had to talk a little bit about skunk weed, of course. But can I ask you some questions from listeners? They had great ones.

• 44:28Speaker 01

  No.

• 44:28Alie Ward?

  No? Okay, well, it's been great, and I wish you the best.

• 44:32Speaker 01

  I told you, you weren't gonna be impressed.

• 44:36Alie Ward?

  I swear they're good ones. I promise. But before we leap into them, let's give away some money to a worthy cause. And this week, Jerry chose savemooncamp.org, which is an area in the San Bernardino Mountains that includes the foraging site of some nesting bald eagles, namely a pair that the world has grown to know and love, Jackie and Shadow. And this 63-acre area was threatened by this massive luxury development. And via savemooncamp.org, enough donations were raised through Friends of the Big Bear Valley and the San Bernardino Mountain Land Trust. And Ologies is proud to have been one of the donors that helped them reach their goal. And the Save Moon Camp folks also just lost Sandy Steers,

• 45:18Alie Ward?

  who was the executive director of Friends of Big Bear Valley this February. And they say she was dedicated to this preservation, and it's lovely to see that it's been accomplished. Now, you may be familiar with the bald eagle pair Jackie and Shadow, and their attempts at hatching chicks over the years, because they have a live nest cam. It's streamed by millions. It runs 24/7, always on the Friends of Big Bear Lake YouTube channel. And sadly, in case you hadn't heard, about a month ago, Jackie, who was the 14-year-old female eagle of the nesting pair, passed away. And the Save Moon Camp site says, "In remembrance of our beloved Jackie, soar high and free with Sandy." And that did make me cry.

• 46:01Alie Ward?

  So Jackie the eagle's longtime mate is named Shadow, and he's newly solo in their big nest that they built. But I, wait, just a few days ago, okay, the LA Times reported that hours after celebrity bald eagle Jackie's death was announced, a new beaked face showed up in the big bear nest she shared with her mate, Shadow. Named KD1, or Katie, the four-and-a-half-year-old female eagle has been spotted visiting the nest a few times. Is Katie perhaps a friend? Or is she using a grieving widow for his fame and his penthouse apartment with a lake view? Apparently neither, because they're birds, and ecologists say we're not supposed to project on them.

• 46:43Alie Ward?

  Also, eagle-related side note, this week I'm on the podcast Walking About with comedian and national treasure Alan MacLeod, in which he takes walks with his friends and famous comedians. And I mentioned that LA has no eagles, and someone corrected me on that. But I want to set the record straight, that Big Bear is in San Bernardino County, not LA County. And we recorded that episode in March. And then two months later, one pair of bald eagles were spotted nesting in LA County proper. So, whatever. But Walking About, great show, check it out. And thanks to sponsors of the show for making these donations happen. Okay. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. If you haven't heard me gushing about Squarespace for years, it's an all-in-one website platform.

• 47:28Alie Ward?

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• 48:13Alie Ward?

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• 48:55Alie Ward?

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• 49:40Alie Ward?

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• 50:07Speaker 04

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• 50:51Alie Ward?

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• 51:06Alie Ward?

  But you've been sprayed... How many times do you figure you've been sprayed by skunks, sir?

• 51:11Speaker 01

  About six or seven.

• 51:13Alie Ward?

  That's it?

• 51:14Speaker 01

  Per animal.

• 51:14Alie Ward?

  Okay.

• 51:20Alie Ward?

  Can they reload on you? Do they have more than one? Like, how much is in the chamber?

• 51:24Speaker 01

  When it comes to a skunk feeding, I've never seen a full skunk.

• 51:29Alie Ward?

  Okay.

• 51:30Speaker 01

  When it comes to a skunk spraying, I've never seen an empty one.

• 51:33Alie Ward?

  Oh. Someone's got to embroider that on a pillow for you.

• 51:36Speaker 01

  When it comes to a skunk spraying, I've never seen an empty one.

• 51:39Alie Ward?

  Evan Kennedy wanted to know how long it takes, how many sprays, and if they know how much is left, if they can feel how much is left in the glands, or if they do skunk math. I imagine you've got to feel when your butt glands are getting empty, right?

• 51:54Speaker 01

  I would imagine, because the ones that get dissented are still doing the spray behavior.

• 51:59Alie Ward?

  Oh, right.

• 51:59Speaker 01

  So they may not recognize it. And again, the thing is, if they're having to spray so much that their glands are empty, they're probably getting ready for a fight anyway. Because whatever they're spraying at is not backing off. And so that's why it's constant boom, boom, boom. Eventually, they're going to be fighting before they run out.

• 52:17Alie Ward?

  And a little goes a long way.

• 52:19Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 52:19Alie Ward?

  Right?

• 52:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I mean, again, if you get in, your eyes is going to burn. It's like, ah, they just sprayed me in the eye.

• 52:26Alie Ward?

  So you've been sprayed probably upward of 100 times?

• 52:31Speaker 01

  I was sprayed nine times in 11 seconds by a hooded skunk. We were trying to take pictures of it. It's just boom, boom, boom.

• 52:38Alie Ward?

  No.

• 52:41Alie Ward?

  That is brutal, man.

• 52:43Speaker 01

  And, you know, I was not doing something stupid.

• 52:48Alie Ward?

  No.

• 52:48Speaker 01

  No, well, actually, I was, but...

• 52:50Alie Ward?

  What were you, what were you doing? Were you talking?

• 52:52Speaker 01

  We were just trying to get pictures of him, so I was in the enclosure with him, and he was not happy, so...

• 52:56Alie Ward?

  I wouldn't call that stupid. I'd call that curious.

• 53:00Speaker 01

  We filmed a skunk spraying at 1,000 frames per second. And they had a, they started off with a squirt bottle, and they had the camera set at 500 frames per second, and they squirted, film it. And I said, that's not fast enough.

• 53:11Alie Ward?

  My god.

• 53:12Speaker 01

  And so we grand it up to 1,000. And so I had one of my research animals. We had a mom and seven babies. And well, by babies, I mean, they were kind of juvenile. And so we took one of those first time, and we let them spray three times. I was rubbing my hand along the backside of them to see if they could spray, but I couldn't get my hand out of the way fast enough. So they sprayed. So I finally had to, I just kind of leaned in and blew kisses on them, and they would...

• 53:44Alie Ward?

  No.

• 53:45Speaker 01

  And they filmed that 1,000 frames per second, just... And if they've got a shot of that, actually, I may have that on my phone, too.

• 53:51Alie Ward?

  Oh, no.

• 53:52Speaker 01

  If I had stuck my tongue out in that shot, they would have gotten it on film.

• 53:57Alie Ward?

  Oh, dear. How's your sense of smell? I'm the real question, because my friend Micah, no sense of smell.

• 54:02Speaker 01

  I don't smell good.

• 54:03Alie Ward?

  Okay, well...

• 54:04Speaker 01

  No, I don't have a good sense of smell.

• 54:05Alie Ward?

  Yeah. You smell fuck.

• 54:08Speaker 01

  One of those is true.

• 54:09Alie Ward?

  How's your wife's sense of smell?

• 54:12Speaker 01

  We had one animal that was in a, in a little den area, and we were getting ready to release her, we were checking on her. And as we were walking up to her, I could see what she was doing. And Gwedd was right behind me with her, she was bringing something with her. And I saw, I was, I just ducked, and it's right over me.

• 54:31Alie Ward?

  No.

• 54:32Speaker 01

  And hit her, and I turned around, looked at her, and she goes, I don't know why I think I'm immune.

• 54:38Alie Ward?

  Oh, no. So then, you must have had to deskunk yourself so many times. Is it just throwing your clothes in the wash? I mean, the tomato juice does not work, right?

• 54:50Speaker 01

  I just take a shower.

• 54:51Alie Ward?

  You just take a shower? Does that work?

• 54:53Speaker 01

  No.

• 54:53Alie Ward?

  Okay.

• 54:57Speaker 01

  So my wife likes to use diluted bleach.

• 55:00Alie Ward?

  Okay.

• 55:01Speaker 01

  And I can tell what kind of mooch she's in by how diluted the bleach is.

• 55:06Alie Ward?

  No, doesn't work enough on... Well, does, if you get skunked, because it's oily, right?

• 55:14Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 55:14Alie Ward?

  So it's oily, so it must not react great to water, right? And so is it a matter of soaking up the oil? Like, when people must ask you this, like, my dog got skunked, or I ducked and my wife got skunked, for example, what's the first aid? You shouldn't call an ambulance, right?

• 55:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably not.

• 55:37Speaker 01

  I don't know, maybe if you get hit in the, in the eyes, I don't know, but...

• 55:42Alie Ward?

  First thing is calm, calm down.

• 55:44Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:44Alie Ward?

  Right? And it was, did you have goggles in that one?

• 55:48Speaker 01

  Um, no, I don't think I did on that one. Most of the time, I wear the goggles around my neck, anyway.

• 55:54Alie Ward?

  Oh, my god. Does it hurt your eyes? Is it, is it just foul smelling? Or does it have, like...

• 55:59Speaker 01

  It'll burn, yeah.

• 55:59Alie Ward?

  It'll burn? Oh, dear. So Dr. Dragoo pulls up a visual aid. It's an extremely close-up, high-definition photo of a skunk anus. Two finger-like maroon projections emerge from its pink sphincter, and a jet stream of sparkling, golden, almost neon-yellow ass juice fills the frame.

• 56:22Speaker 02

  To fire, the skunk extrudes a pair of nozzles from its rear.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  And you can see those stick out past the anal sphincter when they're getting ready to spray.

• 56:35Speaker 01

  They can use those to target, and they'll direct their spray in whatever direction they want to go.

• 56:40Alie Ward?

  Later, back in LA, I reviewed that footage via the PBS archives, and I happened to be working a crowded section of a dead, silent library, and my laptop monitor, absolutely wall-to-wall animal anus. And I, I covered the screen with my fingers, and I tried to just watch it through the slivers.

• 57:00Speaker 01

  You see the little pink nipples there?

• 57:02Alie Ward?

  Yep, I do, I do. It looks like we're looking at its nose, but that's definitely its butthole, right?

• 57:08Speaker 01

  That's the southern end of a northbound skunk.

• 57:10Alie Ward?

  And do those, are those little nipples coming out of the butt? Are those the nozzles?

• 57:16Speaker 01

  Yep. Those are the end of the scent gland, and they're just inside the anal sphincter.

• 57:20Alie Ward?

  And then what's coming out of it looks like just threads of gold. It looks like...

• 57:25Speaker 01

  Anal sac amber.

• 57:26Alie Ward?

  That's anal sac amber, just like golden threads, that's what that looks like. And so, from what I understand, they can make it come out fast or not fast. That's true?

• 57:38Speaker 01

  So when I'm chasing them, and they're running away and they can't see me, they just kind of let go, and it's kind of a cloud. It goes...

• 57:45Alie Ward?

  Okay.

• 57:46Speaker 01

  And then it kind of drain, rains down, and predator has to run through that. And that's usually enough to stop a predator. As I keep getting closer and closer, and the animal may go under brush or somewhere, and he will turn and look at me with both ends, things, his head and his butt, and that comes out as a stream, and it's usually directed right at my eyes. I note a caution for anybody who tries this at home. Don't let your jaw drop in utter amazement while you're holding a skunk by the tail at arm's length in front of you. You can also, you know, turn them a different way so that...

• 58:17Alie Ward?

  You can point the nozzle.

• 58:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, you don't have to leave it pointed at your face.

• 58:20Alie Ward?

  At your open mouth, for example.

• 58:23Speaker 01

  Unless you want to.

• 58:24Alie Ward?

  Unless you want to. Some people want the full experience.

• 58:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 58:27Alie Ward?

  But, yeah. Oh, yeah, what does it, Jared just whispered to me.

• 58:34Alie Ward?

  Ask what it tastes like. Hey, hey, hey, hey, ask what it tastes like. Jerry, what does it taste like?

• 58:42Speaker 01

  Well, that's a good question. Usually, I mean, if I get it up the nose, it's more of a burning sensation, and the eyes is a burning sensation, but I don't, I don't really think it's unpleasant. But that's just me.

• 58:56Alie Ward?

  You shrug.

• 58:57Speaker 01

  That's just me. Again, I don't...

• 59:00Alie Ward?

  We need a panel of people who have been sprayed by skunks to answer. Not it, not it. Not it. It's got those garlic and burnt rubber and sulfur.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  And a lot of times, I mean, if something hits the side of your house, you'll get that initial strong skunk smell. And then, once it kind of dries off, everything's fine. But then that little sticky stuff, if it gets wet again, it turns those thiol acetates into thiols again, and then it releases the odor a second time. So it has a longer staying life. So when you're going to clean it off of your balls or whatever, you need to make sure you get all the little remaining bits. Because once that gets wet again, it's, there's the thiols and the thiol acetates. And the spotted skunks don't have the thiol acetates, so when they spray you, it's going to be pungent, but it dissipates.

• 59:49Alie Ward?

  Oh.

• 59:50Speaker 01

  Whereas with the striped skunks and the hog-nosed skunks, they have the thiol acetates, and so if they get you and you get it wiped off, you start sweating or something, you're going to start picking up that odor again, which is why sometimes you can't get it out of your dog all the time.

• 1:00:02Alie Ward?

  Is because if the dog gets a little wet, smells again?

• 1:00:06Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:00:06Alie Ward?

  So, oh, so you didn't get it off the first time?

• 1:00:09Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:00:10Alie Ward?

  Oh, got it.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  And of course, the sooner you get at it, the more likely you are to get a better, do a better job removing it, but...

• 1:00:16Alie Ward?

  But it doesn't mean that the dog will learn?

• 1:00:18Speaker 01

  No, no, it is.

• 1:00:21Alie Ward?

  So let's address a very common question on the multiple minds of patrons via Patreon.com/ologies. So this was asked by Nick Worth, Hendrick Beechey, Caroline Fox, Mugda Yola, Charlton, Kylie Cat, Greg Stafford, Plum, Isabel Fitzpatrick, Caitlin Alice, Christine Rohana, Elta Sparks, Ranger France, Fatty Bo, Batty Matty, Shelby Paxton, Rachel Mae's Dog, Phineas, Ninja Squirrel, Ani G, and first-time asker Claire Widener, who wanted to know, what's the official ologist-approved remedy for skunk stank? And... Okay, Rich J. wants to know... If that tomato juice thing really, really works, or if it's just, you know, boy scout bullshit. Fritz Monroe also wants to know... What is the best way to get the skunk smell?

• 1:01:07Alie Ward?

  Off your dog. Thank you. So yes, tomato juice will just make your dog smell like a meatball. And in order to break down those sulfurous thiols, you need chemistry, not preggo. Also, do not grab the hose as a first line of remediation. Water at the get-go is just gonna make it worse. So what you want to do is get yourself some hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, and dish soap, or even better, pet shampoo. So use a quart of hydrogen peroxide, 32 ounces, about a liter of 3% hydrogen peroxide, 1/3 of a cup of baking soda, and a tablespoon of liquid dish soap or pet shampoo. So you need to mix this up as soon as you can.

• 1:01:52Alie Ward?

  You've got to get rid of it the faster the better. And you've got to make a fresh batch of this stuff each time you need it because it doesn't keep well. So you take this mixture, you scrub it thoroughly into your pet's fur or your face, whatever the problem is. And you should avoid the eyes and the mouths. And then you rinse yourself or the pet, and you repeat the process if you need to. And experts note that this remedy may lighten your pet's fur, but it'll do wonders for reducing the stink. Also, everyone loves a makeover. So there you go. Once again, a quart or about a liter of 3% hydrogen peroxide, 1/3 of a cup of baking soda, and a tablespoon or two of oil-cutting dish soap or pet shampoo. That's going to oxidize those stinky chemicals,

• 1:02:36Alie Ward?

  and your animal will no longer smell unless you miss a spot and it gets wet again. Or it gets repeatedly sprayed in the face for money, like Jerry. And what happens when you've been sprayed nine times in the face by a skunk? Was there a first time it happened where you said, well, that'll be the last time? Or were you like, it's fine?

• 1:03:03Alie Ward?

  And a little bit of a cliffhanger. We're going to be back next week to hear that answer and more of your Patreon questions. They're so good. Also on the agenda, Pepe Lipew discussion, outrunning skunks, if they can smell themselves, what do you do if you see one in the wild, rehabbing and keeping skunks, how the world learned of Jerry Drago, so much. So come back next week because honestly, the facts get weirder and the stories are jaw-drawers. Also, follow Jerry. I forced him to have a Blue Sky account. Right now, he has 89 followers. So let's surprise him with an absolute deluge. He's at JW Drago on Blue Sky, JW Drago, say hi. It's also linked in the show notes.

• 1:03:47Alie Ward?

  We are at Ologies on Blue Sky and Instagram. I'm at Ally Ward on both. Smologies are shorter, kid-friendly episodes in their very own feed. Just look for Smologies, S-M-O-L-O-G-I-E-S, wherever you get podcasts. That We Meet at Last by JBstink.com is linked in the show notes, along with some other collabs I've made with your podmother, Jarrett Sleeper. Again, JBstink.com. That We Meet at Last skunk shirt will be linked in the show notes. Erin Talbert, Admins Eologies Podcast Facebook group. Aveline Malik makes our professional transcripts. Callie Ardwire does the website. Scheduling producer Noel Dilworth is our very own high-speed camera. Aiming our weekly nozzles is managing director Susan Hale. And the dual stripes down my furry back are editor Jake Chaffee

• 1:04:32Alie Ward?

  and lead editor Mercedes Maitland of Maitland Audio. Nick Thorburn stomped out the theme music. And if you stick around till the very end, you know, I may tell you a secret. And this week, it is that I am recording this on Tuesday, the very day that it goes up. That's kind of how we roll around here. And as soon as I stop recording, I think I'm taking Jarrett to the ER for possible appendicitis. So I will keep you updated, since this is a two-parter, next week, if he needed to get an organ removed, or if he just had a fart. We don't know. So we're gonna go check it out. We should do an episode on appendices if we need to. So thank you for being here. Come back for part two next week. It's so good. Okay.

• 1:05:17Alie Ward?

  Bye-bye.

• 1:05:37Alie Ward?

  Is there a skunk around here because my eyes are watery?

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• 1:06:10Alie Ward?

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