Journal: News & Comment

Skunk truck

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A couple of weeks ago, there was a distinct whiff of skunk in our neighbourhood. I assumed one had run into a raccoon or a dog and let loose with its scent. But the smell persisted over several days, which was more like Pepe le Pew than a real skunk.

Kerry K-Love figured it out this weekend. There was, it turned out, a dead, bloated skunk trapped just beneath one of the storm sewer grates in the alley next to our house. My wife called it in to the city's sewer maintenance department, and this was the reaction of Deirdre, who answered the phone:

"Yuck."

Today a large, orange City of Burnaby sewer-pump truck arrived. The operator spent some time talking on his radio, so I went out to chat with him.

"My supervisor told me there was a storm drain to unclog," he said. "But he didn't say what was clogging it, and he chuckled a bit when he told me to come clear it out. I was wondering why. Now I know.

"It looks like it's been decapitated, by the way."

A dead, bloated, decapitated skunk carcass trapped in our storm sewer. Greaaaaat.

It must have died or been killed uphill from here, then fallen in (or have been sleeping in) the storm sewer during one of our recent heavy rains, which washed it down to our block, where it became trapped under the grate.

Before the pump-truck operator proceeded, he called in the SPCA, who arrived and performed a quick inspection. Then he pulled up the sewer grate and used the large-bored suction hose to suck the dead skunk into the truck's (thankfully) sealed sewer tank. He drove off.

"Thanks!" I shouted after him.

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