Our neighbour saw a possum a few nights ago so he set up a small live animal trap in our front garden. It was armed with a peanut butter sandwich.
I peeked out early this morning, and yes, there was an animal in the trap.
Problem was, that it was not a possum! It was a SKUNK.
At that stage there was no bad odour around, so I phoned the neighbour to alert him to the facts. Dang, his wife answered the phone and advised me he had gone to church and would not be back home until around midday.
I was not going to go anywhere near the thing, and we had people coming later this morning and we certainly did not want a bad smell around.
My wife had the presence of mind to phone the local Live Animal Control centre. And, Sunday morning, we managed to find someone on the phone.
About 45 minutes later, a young woman, (about 23 years old, dressed in t-shirt, shorts and wearing flip-flops – no sign of the protective gear we expected) arrived and assessed the situation. She sneeked over to where the trap was and peeked around the garden wall at it.
Then she came back and assured us that she would take care of it!
We withdrew back into the house and were dreading what would happen.
It seems she managed to cover the cage with a sheet of plastic, and then proceeded, with much caution, to anaesthetise the beast.
It took about 15 minutes, and she soon had the sleeping animal in a small bag.
She certainly knew what she was doing, and looked as if she had done so many times before.
Reminds me of an occasion, back in Western Australia about 40 years ago, when my Father set a trap near a hole in our back garden. He used a rat trap like this:-
We approached the trap the next day and could not make out just what was in the trap. We could determine that it was a reptile, and that it had legs.
It was all curled up inside the trap. After cutting the trap open, we discovered that it was a…
… a Race Horse Goanna. He was about 4 foot long and once free, headed for the bush.
Morale of the story:- Animals are not aware which specie the trap is set for!