I have occasionally written that skunks are my favorite animal, and for many people this strikes them as somewhat odd. Perhaps ironically, skunks are themselves rather anxious and nervous animals, but their intensely unpleasant spray is such a successful deterrent to attack that they are an animal that in turn often makes people (and other potential predator animals) afraid of tangling with them if they have previously encountered skunks defending themselves. So long as you are not a threatening person, and the skunk is not rabid, it is very possible to have friendly encounters with skunks, as they are generally foraging animals with poor eyesight most active in evening and during the nighttime hours who are often easy to leave alone to their own foraging efforts.

Sometimes, though, skunks find themselves foraging near where humans reside, and this can often be very hazardous for the skunk. As it happens, yesterday (as I write this), I found myself spending some time standing and chatting with some people near where flies were buzzing about the body of a dead skunk that had been prowling about the home for some time, which ultimately proved to the demise of the fairly large and mostly black polecat in question. The skunk’s presence near the windows of bedrooms discouraged people from opening the windows on account of the animal’s rather fierce body odor. Similarly, it was questioned whether or not the skunk itself was actually a threat. Was the skunk feeding itself on cat food? What was the animal foraging or hunting for its food? Skunks have a pretty large and varied diet as omnivores who have a broad diet that ranges from fruit to just about any animal smaller than the skunk itself. Those who keep skunks as pets often feed it like a cat, so it would make sense that skunks and cat food make a pretty obvious combination.

It struck me as particularly interesting that this skunk was just allowed to lay where it had died without any efforts in mind to give the animal a decent burial. It appeared, at least from what I could gather, that the family was inclined to either let nature take its course and see what scavengers happened to find their way to consume the skunk and turn it into food, or perhaps some people would come and inquire as to whether the skunk was available as a source of meat. I must admit that I am not acquainted with the sort of cuisine that would turn the skunk–an animal that the Bible would resolutely consider unclean as an omnivore lacking cloven hooves or the digestive system of a ruminant like cattle, sheep, goats, and deer. Are skunks a delicacy to some people, or is it simply that there exist some poor people for whom any dead animal adds some protein to one’s diet? One can hardly blame buzzards for not being particularly choosy about what they eat, and there is certainly a place in this world for scavengers to help process that which would otherwise be left simply to rot and fester, but human beings ought to be more discerning about their diet, one would think.

When human beings think about animals like skunks, our main concern is the extent to which such animals are a threat to us. Apart from those skunks afflicted with rabies, skunks in general are not particularly threatening animals, and they generally enjoy eating and wandering about without any particular hostility towards human beings. They can certainly cause us harm, but tend to be rather defensive and not aggressive in nature, for all of their claws and sharp teeth and accurate spraying abilities. We seldom stop to ask, though, if we ought to be a threat to the life and well-being of the skunk. For many people, simply being afraid of something or someone’s intentions, or concerned about one’s well-being because something or someone has the ability to cause us harm is sufficient justification to kill it and eliminate its presence as something that can cause us fear. Is this just? What level of threat is sufficient for us to be able to kill in self-defense? Ought we not to have more than mere fear or suspicion that something could do us harm potentially, but instead some sort of active proof that harm is meant? Otherwise, how are we to live in a peace in a world where we are often a threat and a danger to others, and where dangers to ourselves are possible at every turn?