Looking back nine years, Iris Carr recalls the arrival of three skunks and three racoons on Bowen Island, brought by pest control workers on the mainland. The racoons, she says, seem to have not prospered, but the skunk population is exploding.
“We hear from so many people about their dogs or cats being sprayed,” says Carr. “I think people don’t understand that skunks don’t actually want to spray, they have a limited amount and that is their only protection. We would like people to learn to live with skunks, but are concerned that people are killing and drowning them.”
Carr says that catching skunks is not particularly hard and it would be possible to spay or neuter them. In a letter to council requesting a catch, spay and neuter program Julia Courtenay explains:
It will incur cost, but given the costs that Bowen Islanders are currently incurring from fumigation, pest control, replacement furniture, carpeting etc. it will quite possibly be deemed an acceptable price.
