Striped skunks appear in 237 New Hampshire records, statewide but thickest in the southern valleys and toward the Seacoast, with Hillsborough, Rockingham, and Strafford counties leading. The map matches the animal, a creature of farms, fields, lawns, and woodland edges rather than deep forest.
A grub hunter that leaves a signature
Skunks feed mostly at night, nosing through turf and leaf litter for grubs, beetles, and worms, with eggs, berries, and small rodents rounding out the diet. The evidence is often a lawn pocked with small, neat digging holes by morning. Their famous defense comes only after fair warning, stamped feet and a raised tail, and the musk is accurate well past ten feet, which is why most encounters end with the skunk waddling off unbothered.
Quiet dens in the cold months
Records nearly vanish in January and February, then surge from July through September. Skunks do not truly hibernate, but they den up through hard cold, sometimes several sharing one burrow, and stay put for weeks at a stretch. The midsummer rise belongs to the year’s young, trailing their mother in single file and then striking out on their own.
Status in New Hampshire
NatureServe ranks the striped skunk S5, Secure, in New Hampshire, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
