Sixty striped skunk records cover all three Delaware counties, from New Castle’s suburban edges down through the farm country of Kent and Sussex, a statewide scatter for an animal most people meet only as a shape crossing the road after dark.
An after-dark insect hunter
Skunks do most of their hunting at night, and much of that hunting is for insects. A skunk digs up grubs, beetles, crickets, and yellowjacket nests with strong front claws, leaving small conical holes in lawns and field edges, then adds mice, eggs, berries, and carrion as the season offers. Delaware’s patchwork of pasture, coastal scrub at Cape Henlopen State Park, and refuge margins at Bombay Hook and Prime Hook gives it exactly the open, diggable ground it favors.
Winter naps, not hibernation
Striped skunks are not true hibernators. They den up through cold stretches, sometimes several females sharing one burrow, then reappear on mild nights even in midwinter, which keeps Delaware’s record ticking in every month. Counts rise in May and again in late summer, when the year’s young leave the den and begin trailing their mother on her rounds, single file.
Status in Delaware
NatureServe ranks the striped skunk S5, Secure, in Delaware, and the species is native here. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous, and it carries no state-level conservation listing.
Full species profile
