The striped skunk turns up across Wyoming’s lower, gentler country, with 98 records scattered through 19 counties rather than concentrated anywhere. Albany County leads, and named sites from Fort Laramie National Historic Site and Grand Teton National Park to Keyhole Reservoir State Park show the generalist’s taste for edges where fields, brush, and water meet.
Famous defense, quiet life
A skunk’s striped warning is backed by scent glands that can spray accurately for several meters, and that deterrent lets it forage at a deliberate walk that few mammals risk. Behind the reputation is an insect hunter that digs grubs, takes eggs and small rodents, and does real work keeping beetle and grasshopper numbers down.
Dens and spring wandering
Skunks do not hibernate, but they den through the coldest stretches of a Wyoming winter, sometimes several females sharing one underground chamber. Reports rise in March as the breeding season puts males on the move, then again in May and June, when females are foraging hard and the first young begin following their mother out of the den.
Status in Wyoming
NatureServe ranks the striped skunk S5, Secure, in Wyoming, and the species is native to the state. USGS NAS does not list it as nonindigenous here.
Full species profile
