Striped skunk reports spread from Piedmont river bottoms near Eno River State Park and Uwharrie National Forest to Coastal Plain farm edges and the lower mountain elevations. The species does not depend on one habitat type here. It follows edges such as hedgerows between farm fields, streamside strips through hardwood forest, and the seam between a coastal soybean field and a patch of woods.
That flexibility is the whole story of the species in North Carolina. A skunk digs its den under a woodpile, a porch, or a hollow log about as readily in a Charlotte suburb as it does along a rural fencerow, and it forages mostly after dark for insects, grubs, small rodents, and whatever fruit or carrion turns up along that edge habitat. The black-and-white pattern that makes it recognizable at a glance is also what lets it wander farmland and neighborhood edges in the open without hurrying.
Records climb through the warmer months and peak in September, which tracks with young skunks dispersing from their mothers’ dens and insect prey being easiest to find. Reports drop off in winter, when a hard cold snap can keep a skunk denned for days, but it isn’t a true hibernator anywhere in the state.
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