Skunks
Mephitis mephitis
Neat cone-shaped holes all over the lawn overnight. The skunk is digging for grubs — which means the grubs are the problem, and it is telling you so.
How to know it
The digging is the identification: small, neat, cone-shaped pits three to eight centimeters across, punched into the turf, dozens of them, all made in one night. Where a raccoon rolls the turf back in strips, a skunk makes individual holes. The animal itself is unmistakable, and so is the lingering musk.
What you'll see
- Many small conical holes in the lawn, appearing overnight, especially after rain.
- Turf rolled back at the edges of a grub-infested patch.
- A faint or strong musk smell around the garden in the morning.
- Digging concentrated in the same patches night after night, which is where the grubs are.
- Sweetcorn and low fruit occasionally taken, and beehives raided.
Where it comes from
Resident and nocturnal, denning under sheds, decks, porches and in old burrows. They do not truly hibernate but stay in the den through the coldest weeks. Young are born in spring and forage with the mother through the summer. They are primarily insectivores, and grubs, cutworms and beetles are the bulk of the diet.
Suburban gardens with irrigated lawns and, therefore, white grubs. Digging peaks in autumn when the grubs are near the surface, and again in spring.
Dealing with it
- Treat the grubs, not the skunk. Water in parasitic nematodes in late summer and the digging stops of its own accord.
- Roll and firm the turf back down and water it; the grass usually knits back in.
- Do not fence a skunk out and leave the grubs in; it will find another way and the lawn will die anyway.
- Block den access under decks and sheds with buried mesh, after checking nothing is inside.
- Give a skunk you meet plenty of room and time; it will warn you at length before it sprays.
Keeping it out
- Keep white grub numbers down with nematodes and by letting the lawn go dry through the beetle flight.
- Secure bins, lift pet food, and clear spilled birdseed.
- Close off den sites under structures in early spring before the young arrive.
- Pick up windfalls under fruit trees.
- Take the digging as information. It is a free grub survey, done thoroughly and at night.
What it goes for
Lawns above all, and the grubs in them. Sweetcorn and low fruit occasionally.
See also
The Cottage Garden Companion — the gardener's bestiary at cottagegardencompanion.com