The Tune Without the Words

Charcoal gray gulls fill the air with a rush of wings on the last evening of April at Westward Beach. This species, Larus heermanni, or Heermann's gull, is abundant on Malibu's beaches in late spring, but it's also near threatened, with a population estimated at just 150,000 breeding pairs. It's a reminder that many of the things we take for granted here in Malibu are rare and remarkable. All photos © 2015 S. Guldimann

Hope is the thing with feathers

That perches in the soul, 

And sings the tune without the words, 

And never stops at all, 

And sweetest in the gale is heard; 

And sore must be the storm

That could abash the little bird

That kept so many warm. 

 I’ve heard it in the chillest land, 

And on the strangest sea; 

Yet, never, in extremity, 

It asked a crumb of me.

—Emily Dickinson

The tune without the words, the song of hope, is everywhere in Malibu in May. In the garden, morning is a symphony—and sometimes a cacophony—of bird calls: the oriole ticks and clicks like an overactive geiger counter, the parrots in the neighbor's palm tree exchange opinions with the crows in the eucalyptus tree and the oak titmouse alternates between announcing "sweet, I'm sweet!" and scolding the resident blue jay with a cry that sounds like "cheater, cheater, cheater." At dusk the sky is full of the rush of swallow wings and the silent acrobatics of the bats. 

The beautiful hooded oriole is a frequent garden bird, but it is shy and often more likely to be heard than seen. Its call is a combination of ticks and twitters that sound like a geiger counter.

All along Westward Beach and Surfrider, thousands of  elegant terns swirl and call, transforming the scene into a tableau from a snow globe, and the pelicans have returned, too, graceful, huge and pterodactyl-like.

A flock of California brown pelicans takes to the sky. You can see the little puffs of sand kicked up as they launch themselves into the air with powerful wings. Brown pelicans really are giants, their wingspan ranges from six to eight feet.

Last week, it seemed that there were just a few of each, this week, hundreds have gathered at Zuma and Surfrider. Flights of pelicans can be spotted all along the coast and the clamor of cries from the huge convention of terns at Surfrider can be heard from PCH.

The sky fills with the sleek white wings of the aptly-named elegant terns.

Like the Heermann's gulls, the terns have returned from their breeding grounds in Baja. And like the gulls, the elegant tern  is also listed by the IUCN (the International Union of Conservation for Nature) as near threatened, although you wouldn't know it to look at the numbers currently present in Malibu. 

A group of elegant terns gather on the sand at Westward Beach.

May is also a good time to look for more unusual species. There were stilts in the main channel of Malibu Creek this week—wading birds with impossibly long, thin, pink legs, and a pair of white-faced ibises—a species this bird watcher had never seen in person before. The brants were there, too—small wild geese stopping for a rest on their way north, but the terns and the pelicans are the most conspicuous harbingers of summer. 

A trio of brants—small, short-billed wild geese—dabble in the main channel of Malibu Creek. 

These are white-faced ibises. The photo doesn't do their spectacular iridescent plumage and bright pink eyes and legs justice. I know the ibis is the symbol of the ancient Egyptian god of wisdom, Thoth, but they looked more like something out of Lewis Carroll to me.

While I was trying to get a good shot of the ibises I was photobombed by an black-necked stilt, another candidate for a Wonderland native.

The pelicans and terns were late this year. The crash in the sardine population that is being blamed for the sea lion unusual mortality event may be responsible for that, but its grunion season now, and the tiny silver fish that spawn on the beach at the new moon in spring and summer are essential for marine mammals and sea birds.

Grunion will be running almost every night during the first week of May this year, thanks to the full moon. The May grunion run is an opportunity for to observe, not join the feast.  The first three months of the grunion breeding season are off limits to human fishers to give the fish a break. It's a bonanza for birds and marine mammals, with many diurnal species showing up in the middle of the night to take advantage of an all-you-can-eat fish dinner. 

Raccoon footprints in the mud near the mouth of Malibu Creek indicate grunion may have been on the menu for more than sea birds.

Here is the May grunion run schedule. Click here to see the Department of Fish and Wildlife's entire 2015 grunion run time chart. 

4 5 6 7 18 19 20 21

Mo 10:00 p.m. - Midnight Tu 10:30 p.m. - 12:30 a.m. We 11:05 p.m. - 1:05 a.m. Th 11:45 p.m. - 1:45 a.m. Mo 10:00 p.m. - Midnight Tu 10:40 p.m. - 12:40 a.m. We 11:20 p.m. - 1:20 a.m. Th 12:05 a.m. - 2:05 a.m.*

For the struggling sea lion population, the arrival of the grunion couldn't come too soon, and the tiny silver fish also attract common and bottlenose dolphins—absent for much of the spring due to the lack of bait fish, back to the Malibu coast. 

Sea lion pups rescued by the California Wildlife Center, being treated for malnutrition and dehydration in March.

Two of the same CWC sea lions, healthy again and headed back to the ocean for a second chance. You can read about the release event, and view more photos here.

Grunion are an essential food source for the Malibu Country Mart's colony of egrets and herons, too. Raccoons, coyotes and the ever opportunistic crows joining in on the fish feast. You never know what you'll see on a grunion night, darkness and silence, or something extraordinary. 

Harried egret parents are taking advantage of the spring grunion run to provide food for their young. Nesting real estate at the Malibu Country Mart was at a premium this year. The ficus trees at the shopping center that are the favorite rookery—or heronry—for snowy and great egrets and black-crowned night herons, were pruned hard over the winter. The foliage is just starting to grow back, but there's at least a few nests like this one, which is already full of hungry and vociferous nestlings. 

May is the time of rebirth, of love and joy and exuberance, of hope, but in Malibu it also brings a sense of loss. It's the end of the gray whale migration. All through the winter there’s the chance—and the hope—that a morning walk or a trip to the beach at sunset will offer a sight of whales. When the last few stragglers have left the warm southern seas and sailed past Point Dume on their way home to the arctic it feels as if some essential magic has gone with them. 

A gray whale and her calf pause at Zuma Beach on the long journey north to the arctic circle.

For me, part of that is grounded in the fact that when I was a child there was the very real fear that the whales would go and not come back. Whales still need protection, they face serious threats that range from pollution to ship strikes and Navy sonar, but they are still here, thanks to passionate conservation advocates who fought and continue to fight for their right to live.

There's an added poignancy in Malibu, since Point Dume was the location of the last commercial whaling operation in California. A total of 250 California gray whales were caught, killed and diced into dog food off Paradise Cove. 

In 2014, the City of Malibu passed a proclamation supporting the safe passage of Marine Mammals:

Whereas, whales and dolphins are known to be highly intelligent and emotional creatures that live in families and other social groupings, associations that last for most, if not all, of their lives and therefore deserve the right to their own freedom and lives.

The proclamation was a purely symbolic gesture, since the city has no authority over anything below the mean high tide line, but it was the first time an American city has officially recognized the right of cetaceans to live undisturbed.

A pair of bottlenose dolphins swim past Point Dume, enjoying freedom and life.

May is a reminder that that things can change for the better. The California brown pelican, the snowy and great egret and the gray whale have all been snatched back from the edge of extinction. The tern's fate is less certain, despite special protections in California, but there's hope for it. There's hope for everything. The "tune without the words" is the anthem of the conservation movement.  

While it's fun and interesting to observe the natural world, it can also be important. We have to know what is there if we are going to protect it. And appreciating it isn't enough, we have to fight for it, too. So there will continue to be grunion, and sea lions, and dolphins, and so there will still be terns in May, and the whales will return in December—this year, and next year, and a hundred years from now. 

“What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.”

― Jane Goodall  

Suzanne Guldimann

1 May 2015

The Fire of Spring

A sea of golden coreopsis frames the view up the coast from Zuma to Sequit Point from Point Dume Nature Preserve. All photos © 2015 S. Guldimann

Come, fill the Cup, and in the fire of Spring
The Winter-garment of Repentance fling:
The Bird of Time has but a little way
To flutter—and the Bird is on the Wing.

—Edward Fitzgerald, The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyám

Wildflower season—a "fire of spring" that sweeps over the hills in a blaze not of flames but of living color—arrived in late winter this year, bursting with spectacular but ephemeral bloom. Easter was early this year, too, arriving at the apex of the wildflower display in the Santa Monica Mountains.

The weather experts warn that we are still many inches of rain below normal, but here in Malibu we received twice as much precipitation as last year, and it was enough to generate a spectacular crop of wildflowers, including an abundance of some seldom seen beauties.

The winter green and lush flowers are already being transformed by the alchemy of hot weather and Santa Ana winds into summer gold, despite one last April shower, but it's not too late to look for wildflowers. 

Lupin covers a hillside burned in the 2013 Springs Fire, in just one of the many spectacular displays of local wildflowers this spring. Many fire followers bloomed early and have already vanished, but many wildflowers are still blooming in the burn zone, including vivid purple and blue phacelia species.

I wrote a 2015 guide to spring flowers for the March 13 issue of the Malibu Surfside News, but the unfolding tapestry of spring keeps revealing new and marvelous things, and one doesn't have to go far to find remarkable sights.

In the time that it took me to put this post together, the giant coreopsis flowers at the Point Dume Headlands have given way entirely to bush sunflowers, but there are still plenty of Malibu wildflowers to see, as the season continues to unfold.

Golden stars are currently at peak bloom at Malibu Bluffs Park Open Space. The giant coreopsis is almost entirely gone to seed at Point Dume Nature Preserve, but bush sunflower is in full bloom, and morning glories, sand verbena and evening primroses are still blooming. At Charmlee Wilderness Park, the meadow is full of orange and yellow deerweed and purple sage, and all through the mountains there are pockets of owl clover, goldfields, poppies, blue larkspur and the pagoda-shaped pale pink flowers called Chinese houses. 

If you know where to look, you may still be treated to the spectral white beauty of globe lilies, or the exotic magenta flowers of Indian warrior. Many spring wildflowers are truly ephemeral—blooming for just a few days before vanishing completely, but while flowers like padre's shooting stars and chocolate lilies bloomed and vanished before spring officially arrived, the season for flowers like clarkia, penstemon, and the towering spires of orange Humboldt lilies is just beginning.

Here's a look at some of this year's spring treasures.

A river of flowers cascades down a hillside along Mulholland Highway. 

That river is comprised of white California popcorn flower—a member of the borage family, California poppies and masses of owl clover.

Here's a closer look at the tiny owl faces that give owl clover its name. Owl clover isn't really a clover at all, it's a castilleja, a member of the same family as Indian paintbrush, and like the paintbrush it's partially parasitic, using the roots of grasses and other flowers as a source of nutrients. Owl clover only flourishes in a year when there are plenty of host plants, but when conditions are right, this little purple flower can be spectacular, carpeting whole hillsides. 

Indian paintbrush is the more familiar species of castilleja in the Santa Monica Mountains, but this year there seems to be a lot of Indian warrior, Pedicularis densiflora, as well. Both species are hemi-parasitic, just like like the owl clover, and depend on host plant for nutrients. Indian Warrior reportedly prefers manzanita or chamise, but this one was growing under a clump of scrub oak. 

Owl clover, California goldfields and wild hyacinth dazzle the eye along Pentachaeta Trail, in Trifuno Creek Park, just over the mountain from Malibu in Westlake Village. This trail, on the north side of the mountain, is arguably one of the best wildflower walks in the Santa Monica Mountains. This area is in full bloom right now, while most of the wildflowers on the more exposed south side of the mountain already finished blooming last month.

In a good year, California goldfields, Lasthenia californica, transforms whole hillsides into cloth of gold. 

In additional to field flowers like owl clover and poppies, there's been an extraordinary crop of flowers that grow from native bulbs and corms this year. This beautiful wild brodiaea has been especially abundant. It's common name is, regrettably, blue dicks, from the Latin Dichelostemma. It's also called "purplehead," which isn't much better. I like the other common name, wild hyacinth, although this flower isn't related to the true hyacinth. In fact, the brodiaea genus belongs to the asparagus family. The corms and the flowers of this species are edible. The Chumash developed a variety of techniques for encouraging this plant to grow, and it was an important food source and trade item. It must also be a tasty source of nectar—it always attracts large numbers of butterflies, including this painted lady butterfly—Vanessa cardui.

Here's another beautiful native brodiaea. This one belongs to the genus triteleia and is graced with nicer names than its blue cousin: golden star and prettyface. At Malibu Bluffs Park Open Space, golden star usually blooms together with the Catalina mariposa, but this year, the mariposas were the first to bloom. This was the first golden star I found at Bluffs Park this spring, blooming alone among the mariposas. By Easter, when the mariposas were almost finished, an entire constellation of golden stars was flowering at the  the park.

Rare Catalina Mariposa lilies, Calochortus Catalinae, bloomed in abundance at Malibu Bluffs Park Open Space this year. Although the main flowering is over at Bluffs, there are still patches like these flowers lining this steep trail that leads to a Malibu Road public beach easement. 

 

Catalina mariposa lilies and golden stars bloom together at Bluffs Park.

This mariposa was growing right beside Pacific Coast Highway. Unfortunately, unlike the plants at Bluffs Park Open Space, this colony isn't located on parkland. Instead it's on the site of a future housing development. Rapid habitat loss is the reason this strikingly beautiful wildflower is on the California list of species of special concern.

The white globe lily, Calochortus albus, is a close relative of the Catalina mariposa, but this species has managed to avoid landing on the special concern list, possibly because you won't find this beauty blooming on ocean view coastal bluffs. It's a shade dweller, usually found only in the more remote canyons, where is grows under the protective shelter of larger shrubs. Globe lily is a small flower, but it is almost luminous. Appropriately, it's other common name is fairy lantern.

You may find globe lilies growing near Collinsia heterophylla. Like the globe lily, this wildflower thrives in the shade of the scrub oaks, where it can transform a shady glade into a fairytale illustration. Collinsia's pagoda-like flowers give it its common name: Chinese houses.    

Secluded canyons are also the favored habitat of the chocolate lily, but this is one flower that bloomed early this year and has already completely vanished until next rainy season.

The rarest flower seen on The Malibu Post's spring wildflower ramblings so far this year? This inconspicuous yellow daisy, Pentachaeta lyonii. It may not look like much, but this tiny plant is a federally listed species, and its presence helped save 600-acre Triunfo Canyon Park from being bulldozed for a housing development.

Among the most beautiful sights this spring is the host of brilliantly colored butterflies attracted to the wildflowers. This is a red admiral, pausing for a half a second to sip nectar from a wild hyacinth.

The National Park Service's Santa Monica Mountains What's Blooming website offers updates (somewhat sporadic, because its author recently moved out of state, but still helpful) on where to find wildflowers. It also provides links to the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area calendar of events, and the excellent SMMNRA wildflower guide and app. 

Desert USA's Southern California wildflower report page often includes the local area, in addition to a wide range of stellar wildflower locations, including the Antelope Valley and other parts of the Mojave.

As always, the best way to see wildflowers is to go out and look for them. Just don't wait too long to start, because, as the poet warns, the bird is on the wing...

S. Guldimann

7 April 2015

Spring doesn't linger for long in Malibu. The winter crop of silver puffs, Stebbinoseris heterocarpa, at Bluffs Park has already transformed from pale flowers to luminous spheres of seed, ready for the wind to disperse. 

Making Room for the Skunk

The Malibu Post's critter cam captures the elegant cavalier plume of a tail that belongs to the resident skunk. Photo © 2015 The Malibu Post

"We saw also a couple of Zorillos, or skunks... [Félix de] Azara says the smell can be perceived at a league distant; more than once, when entering the harbor of Monte Video, the wind being off shore, we have perceived the odor on board the Beagle. Certain it is, that every animal most willingly makes room for the Zorillo." 

—Charles Darwin, The Voyage of the Beagle

Every animal may make room for the skunk, except the hapless eternally optimistic dog. Spring on Point Dume is redolent with the scents of acacia, sweet pittosporum, jasmine and, alas, skunk. Here at the Malibu Post, skunk predominates at the moment, because Dog Albert had an encounter with Mephitis mephitis—the garden variety striped skunk, with unfortunate consequences. 

The name mephitis derives from the Roman goddess Mefitis, who rules over the noxious gasses released by volcanos and swamps. Mephitis mephitis means essentially noxious odor x2. Even the common name skunk apparently has odiferous origins: it allegedly derives from the Algonquian word seka-kwa, meaning roughly “piss fox.”

Both names are certainly descriptive, but somewhat unfortunate, since there’s more to this intelligent, playful, benign and highly successful animal than the weapon it uses to defend itself.  But then, the smell is more familiar to most people than the animal itself, which is rarely seen, considering how common skunks are, even in urban areas.  

Skunks are active throughout the year in Malibu’s mild coastal climate, but they are more evident in spring, when mating and breeding activities bring them into closer contact with humans, cars and domestic animals. 

This in Oreo, a skunk rescued by the wonderful people at Coast and Canyon Wildlife Rehabilitation, a volunteer, non-profit organization in Malibu that primarily rescues and rehabs squirrels, but is also licensed to help orphaned skunks, like this one. Photographer Kim Barker kindly gave The Malibu Post permission to use some of her amazing Coast and Canyon skunk photos for this article. You can see many more at the Coast and Canyon Facebook page.

Albert is one of our smarter dogs. This was only his second skunk encounter in the eight years since we adopted him from the Agoura Shelter. I suspect this incident was accidental, he’s alway avoided the neighborhood skunks after that first run-in, unlike his predecessor, who simply could not resist the presence of a skunk, despite the inevitable aftermath.

Every Malibuite knows the smell—a terrible combination of burnt rubber, gasoline, rotten eggs and musk that can be smelled a mile downwind, but the stench that fills the house when the shamed and vanquished dog bursts in, frantic to rid itself of the smell by rubbing it on the carpet, the sofa, the bed and his humans, defies description.

According to a University of Nebraska article on dealing with skunk odor, humans can smell skunk musk in a concentration as low as 10 parts per billion. I can’t imagine what a face-full is like to the many-times more sensitive nose of the dog and it certainly explains why its so difficult to eradicate the smell.

The striped skunk is the common Malibu species of skunk, but Santa Monica Mountain residents may encounter the far less common western spotted skunk, Spilogale gracilis. This one was photographed by a National Park Service remote camera in the Springs Fire recovery area. They are very shy and rarely seen, but like their larger, more common cousins, they also have a powerful scent weapon. Photo: NPS

Here's a closer look at the Western spotted skunk, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Once upon a time, tomato juice was the folk remedy of choice for dealing with skunked dogs. Bitter experience reveals that this method merely adds tomato stains to the already insurmountable mess. It may turn a light-colored dog slightly pink, but does little to alleviate the stench.

Skunk musk is oily and can’t really be washed away without some kind of detergent. The current remedy of choice involves a cocktail containing a bottle of 3-percent hydrogen peroxide, 1⁄4 cup of baking soda, and a couple of teaspoons of liquid dish soap. Theoretically, the hydrogen peroxide and the baking soda help to break down the smelly sulphur-based thiols, while the detergent attacks the oil. 

Maybe the peroxide we used was old and had lost its virtue, or perhaps we didn’t leave the mix on long enough—Albert, like most dogs, was sprayed in the face, and the musk, yellow against our old dog’s white face, was too close to the eyes to risk leaving the peroxide mixture on for the recommended 10 minutes, but it didn’t do much to reduce the smell on either him or his collar, which we soaked in the stuff. 

The next round involved assorted shampoos and lots of water, which didn’t do much either, except add a faint scent of lavender to the mix. The final treatment was diluted white vinegar, recommended to me by a skunk rescuer when I was researching one of my first Malibu Surfside News articles back in 2007. This did seem to help.

After Albert’s extended bath, the bed clothes and everything else that came into contact with the dog and was machine washable was washed with baking soda as well as detergent. I sprinkled baking soda on the carpet, too, and vacuumed everything thoroughly, and then mopped everything mop-able with more vinegar.  

A thoroughly scrubbed and chastened Albert.

Unfortunately, I realized that, at some point during the ordeal—probably in the beginning when Albert attempted to climb on the bed—my hair, which is long and unruly, had somehow come in contact with the musk. I had to repeat the de-skunking process all over again on myself this time, and when that was unsuccessful, I took the draconian measure of chopping off three inches from the offending locks.

A bunch of tuberose, Spanish broom and jasmine and some old sandalwood-scented incense have helped to mitigate the after effect in the house to an almost tolerable level, although it makes for a very strange combination, sort of like those industrial-strength “designer” perfumes from the 1980s. If the City of Malibu’s name branding campaign ever takes off I now have the perfect recipe for the signature "Malibu Spring Nights" perfume.

Albert's skunk successfully made its escape, and Albert is fine now that the initial shock has worn off. It’ll be a long time before the smell entirely dissipates, and time is the only thing guaranteed to effectively eliminate the odor, but its a small price to pay for the opportunity to live in a place where there’s still room for wildlife to live, too, even skunks.

Everyone I've interviewed on the subject of wildlife rescue has expressed the firm belief that skunks have an undeserved bad reputation mostly due to that powerful defensive weapon. 

Kim Barker took this photo of a tiny orphan skunk baby at Coast and Canyon Wildlife. It's inconvenient to cope with a skunked dog, but for the skunk, the dog represents a life-threatening hazard. Skunks have few natural predators, but human-created hazards, including dogs, poison, unintentional traps like swimming pools and construction trenches, and especially cars, take a major toll on skunks. They suffer far more from us than we ever do from them. 

In fact, all of the rehabbers I’ve spoken with have said that skunks are gentle and intelligent. They rarely spray their rescuers or caregivers. And skunk kits are bright, playful and loving. In fact, skunks are beneficial garden residents, as long as humans are willing to take a few steps to coexist.

Skunks are voracious omnivores and eat many types of garden pests, including slugs, snails, beetles, grasshoppers, wasps, bees, grubs and even small rodents such as mice.  Skunks have even been known to eat gophers, rats and the occasional small rattlesnake. 

Skunks are crepuscular animals that prefer to be active at dawn and dusk, but they will sometimes venture out during the day, especially when food is available. Albert’s skunk was probably on its way home. The encounter happened not long after sunrise. 

Skunks have a taste for fruit, bird seed, pet food and garbage. The best way to minimize contact with skunks around the house is to make sure they don’t have access to any of these things. Feeding pets indoors, making sure that garbage containers are closed, BBQ grills are clean and secure, and that fruit from garden trees isn’t allowed to rot on the ground can help. 

Another key measure is sealing openings under houses and outbuildings—favorite skunk nesting places—after making sure skunks are being shut out, not in. 

A lively trio of orphaned skunks enjoy a messy meal at Coast and Canyon Wildlife in this photo by Kim Barker. Skunk kits are playful, curious and affectionate. 

Skunks don’t have very good vision and they aren’t climbers—those impressive claws have evolved for digging up grubs not climbing trees. It's easy for them to get trapped places like light wells, construction trenches or even swimming pools. A branch or piece of scrap lumber makes a good skunk ladder, provided it's not at too steep an angle. A pool sweeper or long-handled broom can be used to gently guide a skunk out of a swimming pool. 

Skunks also sometimes wander into the house. One of our neighbors was startled to find a wild skunk calmly sharing the kibble dish with the family cat. Fortunately, she didn’t panic and the skunk finished its snack and departed peaceably through the pet door.

I had a similar experience while working in my studio with the door open on a warm night. I heard the tip-tap-tip of claws on the tiles and looked up to see, not the dog, but a skunk. Not panicking and not making any sudden movements or noise in an incident like that is the key to avoiding getting skunked. After a tense moment when the skunk and I both went "eek," I held breath and sat perfectly still, and the skunk tip-toed back out the door.

Skunks prefer not to get involved in confrontations, and will  even do a sort of war dance to warn the potential predator that they mean business. Almost everyone—with the exception of the clueless domestic dog—takes that warning seriously.

The skunk communicates with its tail. Our backyard skunk appears relaxed and calm in this remote photo, but the tail whips up in the air if the skunk senses something of interest. If there's a threat, the skunk quivers its tail and will even do a warning "dance," stomping its feet to let the potential predator know it means business. Here's a YouTube video of a baby skunk stomping a warning, and a fantastic remote camera sequence showing a skunk scaring off a coyote without having to fire a shot.

The great horned owl is just about the only predator that doesn’t mind the smell. Rumor has it one can sometimes detect the otherwise silent flier by the tell-tale whiff of skunk musk. 

Humans are skunks' biggest nemesis. The weapon that protects the skunk from almost everything else isn’t effective against cars. Poison also takes a serious toll, as it does with so many other species, including ultimately humans. 

Malibu residents can help prevent skunk encounters and fatalities by slowing down and using extra caution when driving at dusk and dawn. Keeping dogs in at night and on leash during walks can also help. So can installing screen doors and securing pet doors before dusk. It's also a good idea to take a quick look at the garden before going out or letting the dog out. Hasty humans also occasionally end up on the wrong side of a skunk. 

We are very fortunate to have two wildlife rescue organizations in the area that can handle skunks. Anyone who encounters an injured or orphaned skunk is encouraged to contact the California Wildlife Center for assistance, www.californiawildlifecenter.org. Coast and Canyon Wildlife is a smaller facility and focuses primarily on squirrels, but is also able to care for skunks. Both organizations operate on donations and always need contributions, especially during peak rescue season in the spring.

Skunks are a key part of the local ecosystem, along with all of the other local wildlife species—everything from mountain lions to dusky-footed wood rats, and an important part of what makes Malibu remarkable. It's worth making the effort to protect, preserve, and coexist, even when the experience isn't always a bed of roses. 

Suzanne Guldimann
14 March 2015

Our neighborhood skunk quietly goes about its business in the predawn garden. Photo © 2015 The Malibu Post