Catch of the Day - pool skimmer-style

Photo by QUENTIN ROUX, Staff

Local pool service company owner Todd Danforth has fished many strange and wonderful critters out of pools during his 32 years on Marco Island.

Baby raccoons, snakes, an armadillo, opossums, scorpions and lizards of all kinds are among his haul, but he rates his latest as the most unusual.

While servicing a pool in the Caxambas area of the island recently, Danforth looked inside the pool skimmer and saw a bedraggled and exhausted weasel-like creature that was later identified as an eastern spotted skunk.

Just a little bigger than a kitten, the adult skunk began to sink to the bottom when Danforth nudged it with his net.

He caught it in his net and took it home, where he and his wife Denise put the skunk in a plastic container with mounds of towels to dry off and recover.

They weren’t certain what the creature would take by way of food, but after experimenting a little they found it was partial to ham and scrambled eggs.

Denise, in the meantime, called The Conservancy of Naples for advice, and her description eventually led to the skunk being identified.

The Danforths were advised to release the skunk back into the wild once it regained its strength, and were due to do just that today (Sunday) after a week of caring for the little fella.

“We actually gave it a name,” Todd Danforth said ... Stinky.”

He said the family dog, a rat terrier called Bandit, hadn’t been fazed by the presence of a wild animal in the house.

“He kinda looked at him, and that was it,” Danforth said.

Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission information on the skunk states that the spotted skunk is smaller than the more common striped skunk, and ranges from about a half pound to four pounds in weight.

Their defense system is, of course, notorious, with the creatures being able to spray a noxious fluid from their anal glands with an effective distance of about 12 feet.

“Fortunately, he didn’t spray once,” Danforth said.

The eastern spotted skunk’s range extends from southern Pennsylvania, down the Appalachian Mountain range and into Florida, with a portion of the eastern edge of its range encompassing the western portion of South Carolina.

Population data is sketchy, says the FWC.

Spotted skunks help control rodent populations, the FWC says.