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Outdoor Wisconsin host Dan Small welcomes you to his special on-line sanctuary. Join Dan as he notices some hapless polecats raising a stink.  Awards Highlights
Store! Club
Theme7/29/98 Yo! Stinky?! Is That You?!!by Dan Small
Nowadays, however, the problem has apparently reached epidemic proportions with Yoplait yogurt containers those little plastic cups with the narrow mouth and wide base that look like mini volcanos. Foraging in garbage cans, dumpsters, campsites and everywhere else as they are known to do, the stinkers poke their snouts into anything with a little tasty goo left in it. Since Yoplait is second in yogurt sales nationwide, with 558 million containers shipped last year, a fair number of Yoplait empties find their way into the trash stream. Problem is, the Yoplait container is a deadly skunk trap. A skunk’s head just fits into the narrow mouth, but the lip on the inside catches the dense fur around the critter’s neck and prevents it from backing out. Skunks thus caught wander aimlessly about, bumping into things, until they suffocate or die of dehydration.
Here’s a modest proposal. Why not set up a nationwide system of collection bins for Yoplait empties, string lines of them through waterfowl marshes each spring, then check them daily and dispatch the ensnared skunks? It would turn yogurt cup litter into a useful product and help duck numbers grow. The little egg thieves could then go to skunk heaven dreaming of Amaretto Cheesecake and Raspberry Peach Melba. ©2000 Milwaukee Public Television
June 9, '98: Father's Day is Payback
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Skunks have probably been
getting their heads stuck in food containers since the first
time some cowboy tossed an unfinished can of pork and beans
in the bushes after a trailside meal. Over the years,
outdoor magazines have run photos and even cartoons
depicting hapless polecats with their heads wedged into tin
cans.
You can guess the next part. Led by the
Sacramento-based Animal Protection Institute, a number of
animal-rights groups launched a crusade to urge General
Mills (the same folks who will put a bass angler on Wheaties
boxes this fall) to redesign their Yoplait containers to
make them skunk-friendly. The company modified its container
design slightly, adding a gutter designers hope will give
the skunks enough leverage to push the containers off with
their paws and a label on the bottom that reads “Protect
Wildlife. Crush Before Disposal.”
The animal-rights folks say
skunks, just a notch or two above ’possums when it comes to
staying out of trouble, don’t have the dexterity or the
smarts to use the gutter. And how many yogurt slurpers do
you think will read and heed the “crush before disposal”
warning? Certainly not those who toss empties into roadside
ditches or campsite refuse piles. If they don’t find another
worthy cause to hound this summer, the skunk lovers may
continue to raise a mighty stink that will leave its mark on
the food giant. While no one wants any wildlife to suffer
needlessly, this appears to be another PR effort blowing in
the wrong direction. It’s a trash-disposal problem, not a
product-liability issue. Plastic yogurt cups are technically
recyclable, although Yoplait cups bear the number “6,” which
is not currently a plastic that is being recycled. But if
disposed of in sealed trash containers, few should fall into
the paws of foraging skunks. Plastic six-pack rings trap the
occasional gull, goose or duck, but they remain the beverage
industry’s choice for corralling six 12-ounce cans or
bottles, and they probably use fewer raw material than full-
wrap packaging. Responsible people dispose of them properly.
There is another side to
this issue. Besides being notorious rabies carriers, skunks
are among the worst predators of duck nests. The Delta
Waterfowl Foundation says skunks destroy millions of duck
nests each year, especially in the prairie pothole region,
where many of the continent’s ducks are hatched.