For the past six months, the City of Buffalo has responded to the presence of skunks within city limits by trapping skunks, transferring them to a shuttered police station in the Old First Ward, and conducting mass skunk shootings.  Although this story has received recent coverage in the Buffalo News, the author who broke the story took no issue with the fact that time and public funds are being spent on shooting skunks en masse; only with the fact that shooting all the skunks in one location is stinking up the Old First Ward and disturbing local residents. 

We, the undersigned, object to the notion that the only problem with the city’s current skunk policy is the smell.  The solution to this problem is not to find multiple alternative skunk-shooting sites.  The City of Buffalo’s policy of trapping and shooting all skunks found within city limits is an inhumane waste of city resources, and it must stop.

Shooting Buffalo’s skunks is an extreme solution to a problem that has been blown out of proportion.  Skunks are unaggressive, nocturnal creatures who are unlikely to harm local residents, and in fact play an important role in the local ecosystem: according to the Erie County SPCA, “Skunks add value to the ecosystem and even to property owners. They are an excellent resource for problem insects, grubs, etc. that create excessive damage to lawns, and can actually be cost-savers.”  While it is understandable, given their smell, that local homeowners and tenants would not want a skunk living in their yard, this problem can be more sensibly, humanely, and inexpensively solved by educating the public about ways to skunk-proof their property: as a recent op-ed in the Buffalo News pointed out, “The space under a porch or a garden shed is a four-star skunk hotel. Nail a board over a porch-wall hole, or dig wire mesh along the base of a shed, and the skunk moves on down the road.”

The City of Buffalo has a number of available options for managing the local skunk population.  It could allow skunks to remain within city limits, to perform their important ecological task of curbing the city’s insect, rat, and other pest populations.  It could be more aggressive in teaching local residents how to skunk-proof their property.  It could humanely relocate skunks to an area where they would have more space to roam—Tifft Nature Preserve, perhaps, or somewhere outside city limits.  But whatever option the city chooses, euthanasia should be considered as an absolute last option.  It should never be the default action for dealing with local animals—even those popularly considered nuisances.