Season of the skunk: Northern Alberta city offers free capture services for smelly pests

A northern Alberta city has taken a unique approach to managing a distinctly odiferous animal.

The City of Cold Lake has hired a full-time skunk trapper and is offering free skunk removal services to residents. 

Mayor Craig Copeland said the program is all about keeping homes and businesses odour-free in the city of 15,000 people, 300 kilometres northeast of Edmonton.

"We're a community that's living sort of on the fringe of the bush," Copeland said. "Skunks here can be a problem."

Skunks thrive in urban environments. Their striped tails are a common sight in communities across Alberta. Although they are docile foragers who largely keep to themselves, they pose a unique challenge due to the pungent perfume they spray when threatened.

Larger cities such as Calgary and Edmonton don't offer skunk removal services, and officials in Cold Lake believe they may be the first Alberta community to do it.

Copeland said many municipalities leave residents to manage the pests on their own but Cold Lake council decided the city should instead handle the "nasty business" of trapping skunks.

Getting sprayed by a skunk is an experience most people are eager to avoid. Contracting out the service ensures residents can keep their distance, he said.

"Pepé Le Pew is a little bit of a different animal to deal with," he said. "It's a stinky situation." 

The program, which began in June 2023, has been renewed just in time for when Alberta's striped skunk population wakes from a winter spent sleeping underground and begins its breeding season.

"If you don't deal with them, they're going to make more skunks," Copeland said.

The Cold Lake service is a capture and release program. Residents struggling with any of the unwelcome visitors can simply call in a request for help.

Once the city's contractor, or "skunk guy," gets a call, he is allotted five consecutive days to stage a careful capture, Copeland said.

Any skunks trapped by the contractor are relocated into the forest on the outskirts of the city where they are less likely to cause a stink.