The striped skunk is a night-shift omnivore of Pennsylvania’s edges, and its 751 records map the state’s settled and farmed country. Bucks, Centre, and Allegheny counties lead the tally, with parks like Gettysburg, Valley Forge, and Evansburg turning up animals along trails and mowed margins.
Famous for defense, busy as a mouser
The spray needs no introduction, but it is a last resort; a skunk stomps, hisses, and raises its tail long before it fires. The rest of its nights go to hunting. It digs grubs and beetles out of turf, leaving small conical holes in lawns, and takes mice, voles, eggs, fallen fruit, and carrion as they come. That menu makes it a quiet ally around barns and fields, and it dens readily under porches, sheds, and woodpiles.
Young skunks on summer nights
Records peak in June and July, when litters raised in spring leave the den and trail behind their mother on foraging rounds in single file. Skunks do not truly hibernate, but in hard cold they den up for days or weeks at a time, sometimes several sharing one burrow, and they stir again in late winter as the February breeding season begins.
Status in Pennsylvania
NatureServe ranks the striped skunk S5, Secure, in Pennsylvania. The species is native to the state, and USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
