RIVER WATCHER

ODORS IN THE AIR

Rex Burress

When I stepped out the door in the morning darkness, it wasn't smoke from the multitude of forest fires surrounding Oroville that I smelled--but rather odor from Mephitis mephitis the skunk!

I walked rather gingerly in searching for the paper, but evidently the scent-shooter had shot its load at whatever disturbance occurred. The shoot-out may have happened two blocks away since those scent molecules are potent...as you may know if you pass a skunk roadkill.

Skunk perfume causes most people to gag, but it always stirs some pleasant memories of my encounters with wonders of nature and the trapline trail in Missouri when I was a boy. In addition to the skunk's notable chemical abilities, they sport a handsome thick dark fur enhanced with a couple white strips on their back. Those were qualities that put a price on their head when farm boys with a few Victor steel traps hunted them.

I have a treasured, stained, b/w photo before me of my Uncle Lynn Moore posing with his .22 rifle in front of a shed showing his winter fur cache of 1926. Most of the furs were of skunks, so they survived then as they survive in year 2015! Like the raccoon and possum, they have adapted to the edge of cities. The proof is in the air so to speak.

To the young hunter, as well as the old hunter, the challenge of confronting and securing the pelt of a scent-thrower was of extreme excitement because you were dealing with liquid dynamite in my Missouri rural days! I got shot by a skunk more times than I can tell, and once right in the face!

Skunks aren't the only odoriferous animal, and a number of plants also emit loud aromas! Skunks are carnivores in the Mustelidae family that also includes weasels, mink, and even badgers, and they all have some degree of anal gland scent.

Only the striped skunk and the spotted skunk are able to shoot the smelly spray efficiently, and that defensive system gives skunks the confidence to stand their ground. A whirl of their uplifted tails signals disruptive intentions, and the impish little spotted skunk actually does a handstand before firing! The yellowish spray can be shot up to six feet! Benjamin Franklin was so impressed with their defensive behavior that he wanted the skunk as our national animal instead of the offensive eagle!

In Africa and some other Asian areas, there lives a honey badger, also in the weasel family, genus Mellivora. It looks somewhat like a skunk as they have a broad white stripe on their backs and store some very volatile scent in an anal pouch. They are among the toughest mammals known, equipped with skin so thick that bees cannot sting the honey raider. Like its American cousin, the wolverine, it is said that other predators will retreat from a carcass when they appear. Most members of the weasel family are aggressive stinkers and often prone to kill more than they can eat, a trait rare among mammals, except for mankind.

Among odor producers is the Stink Badger of Java and Borneo. It is not a true badger but more closely related to the skunk genus, and the only other of the weasel group that can shoot a short six-inch vile spray.

There are stink bugs. There are stinkhorn mushrooms and stinkbomb mushrooms that emit a rotten flesh odor. There is a giant “Corpse Plant” whose blossom is equal to its name [one is in the Chico State University arboretum], and two “stink tree species;” the Tree of Heaven and the Ginkgo [examples grow at the Oroville Chinese Temple].

You can actually sniff your way around the woodlands, smelling good and not so good things! Would you believe that there is also a stinking rock? Antozonite or Stinkspar was found in Bavaria in 1841, and gives off a putrid odor of fluorite through an interaction with uranium when crushed!

I haven't even touched on the perfume of various blossoms, nor the various gases, nor the obnoxious secretion of garter snakes, nor the vomit of whales, nor the acute odor of the cave dwelling oil birds of Trinidad, nor the aroma of sun-warmed pine needles on the ground among the mountain trees, nor a thousand more odors of the outdoors. There is so much to tell...

“I love the smell of skunks. Driving down a back road and you smell a skunk that's sprayed

or been hit. I love that. It reminds me of home.” --David Lynch

“Nothing can beat the smell of dew and flowers and the odor that comes out

of the earth when the sun goes down.” --Ethel Waters