The striped skunk is one of the most evenly spread mammals in Washington’s record, 318 records scattered across 34 counties, led only loosely by Spokane, Okanogan, and Kittitas. That scatter fits an animal of edges and open ground that does as well in farm country and town greenbelts as in wilder places like the Sinlahekin Wildlife Area or Gifford Pinchot National Forest.
An omnivore that eats almost anything
A striped skunk’s menu runs from grubs and grasshoppers to mice, eggs, fruit, and carrion, and it leaves small cone-shaped diggings in lawns and meadows while hunting beetle larvae. That flexibility lets it den nearly anywhere in Washington that offers cover, in abandoned burrows, brush piles, or beneath outbuildings, which helps explain records from Whitman wheat country west to the Olympic Peninsula. Its famous spray, aimed accurately from glands under the tail, means most predators leave it alone, and the skunk waddles through its nights accordingly unhurried.
Quiet winters, a February stir
Skunks are not true hibernators, but they den up through cold snaps, often several females sharing one den, and Washington’s reports sink to their lowest from November through January. They stir again in February as the breeding season begins, well before most native mammals are abroad, and counts stay steady from spring through fall.
Status in Washington
NatureServe ranks the striped skunk S5, Secure, in Washington. It is native to the state, and USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
