When live trapping appears to be the only way to remove a problematic skunk, please keep the following in mind:
Contact a reputable and reliable, experienced professional nuisance wildlife removal company when the animal must be removed from between walls or from crawl spaces or when the home owner is unable to remedy the problems.
Nuisance wildlife removal companies are not licensed and may only have a license from the MNR as trappers. That’s required for them to remove the animal from your property.
Ethics or methods they may employ to deal with that problem are not under any regulations at all and this is where they differ. Very few of these companies offer humane solutions that secure the access point and treat the animal humanely.
Contact your local authorized wildlife custodian or wildlife centre and ask them for a recommendation.
Contact the local Ministry of Natural Resources for further assistance.
REMEMBER!
In accordance with the Fish and Wildlife Conservation Act, if you live-capture a nuisance animal, and do not humanely kill it, you must, within 24 hours, either release it in close proximity to where you caught it (within 1 km of point of capture for all adult wildlife) as directed by the Ministry of Natural resources, or, if it is sick, injured or immature, turn it over to an authorized wildlife custodian.
Whatever it is that is attracting skunks to your property, is what needs to be eliminated. Without that being remedied, there will never be a long term solution for wildlife conflicts.
Trapping done by inexperienced homeowners, the ‘guy next door’ with a trap and so on, won’t solve the problem. It seems like an instant solution but it isn’t.
Those who fail to check if the skunk being removed is a lactating female, and if she may have babies in the area will deliberately leave those babies behind to starve to death and die. And who wants to get that close up and check on the underside of a skunk?? Imagine the smell of a litter of decaying bodies a month later!
Trapping by a reputable, humane company that will also repair the entrance point to prevent re-entry is the only choice if all else fails.
It is illegal to use weapons within city limits to shoot animals, and it is illegal to use body gripping traps. Using poison can result in criminal charges and fines up to $5,000. None of those methods are viable options for a nuisance wild animal.
More info
http://www.owren-online.org/skunks1.htm