This was high drama in the little town of Rochester for a sleepy Sunday morning. I stepped outside to grab the morning Free Press from my porch, and my neighbor called out to me, “Come see this! There’s a baby skunk with a cup stuck on its head.”
The little kit, blinded by a yogurt cup, was running in circles in the road. It would bump into the curb and run back out. The sight was comical at the same time it was distressing. The critter had to be dizzy. I was thinking about the net in the garage… would that work? Then what? My neighbor Valerie said she ‘d called the police, but the dispatcher doubted they could do anything — something I didn’t want to hear. Valerie, her friend and I watched it protectively, like worried mothers. Luckily, at 8 am on Sunday, there wasn’t any traffic.
Minutes later, the city police arrived in an SUV and a motorcycle.
They shook their heads. Does a baby skunk spray? Valerie did some quick fact-checking on her phone: baby skunks don’t spray and they’re friendly.
How old was this little guy?
All I can say is that was one brave cop who reached down and pulled the cup off. The kit tried to spray him, but it wasn’t much. The kit looked a bit perplexed, as if it didn’t know how it ended up in the middle of the road, facing a huge black SUV with flashing lights. For a baby, it attempted some pretty fierce posturing before it scampered off, tail up like a feathery plume.
The rescue made for a very fine morning. The Rochester police posted a dash-cam video on their Facebook Page.