I witnessed a skunk fight last night.
Close to midnight, in our night stroll in the yard, I saw a skunk running towards me. Wait, normally, they would turn around as soon as they see me, what’s wrong? Then I saw there’s a second skunk right behind. They both are doing their full speed towards us, we stood still, making sure we’re not in their way. Once passing us they started wrestling, circling around like the Yin/Yang symbol of Taoism, eventually they tangled together, screeching loudly, louder than a crying baby. Their fight is getting more tense, even moving closer to us, as if we don’t exist. We got inside their squirting range, time to go.
We sneaked back indoors, they were still fighting, even right outside our sliding patio door. You can see clearly one on top of the other, they won’t let up, and the screeching is getting louder too. I got concerned, do they have to fight to the death? We shine the flashlight on them, hopefully will breakup the fight. They normally don’t like flashlight, but didn’t work this time. Eventually they broke off, one took off, the other stayed in the yard, walked a little limpy, but at least still walking.
The whole fight lasted about 10 minutes, the smell lasted more than 24hours (and still counting). This is not their mating season, so it was either for territory or a food source.
Even though I don’t like their smell, I am glad they didn’t die, at least not in our yard. For us it’s a show, for them it is life or death.
PS, the picture was taken in our yard a couple months ago, during peaceful time.
