Here's something that if you live on Guam you don't hear everyday - the folks at the Department of Agriculture made a most curious discovery in one of their traps this morning: a skunk. And the little stinker has authorities puzzled about how he got here. Now, it's not Pepe Lepew, but the creature is a skunk (not endemic to the island), and it was found on Guam.


According to animal control officer Manny Calvo, this member of the weasel family was caught in the Agana Sewer Treatment Plant. Before he was caught, however, the wily little weasel was able to evade capture for least few days. "The first night when he did go into the trap, he managed to move our bait can," recalled Calvo. "He pulled it out of the cage and he just finished up what was in there and started playing around with the can, then that's when he decided to move on when there was no more food." He said that the skunk was lured with simple storebought cat food.


In fact, according to USDA assistant state director of Hawaii and Guam Daniel Vice, these critters are opportunistic scavenger/hunters who'll eat just about anything they can get their paws on. "It's called a 'striped skunk', it's a very common animal across North America; found basically from coast-to-coast in the U.S. and in Canada," he said.


Vice says this skunk may have been on Guam for awhile, as one was sighted and photographed in Agana Heights about six months ago. Although he can't say for sure, Vice says the skunk caught most likely is the same skunk that was seen in the central island village.


As for the obvious question of how it got to Guam in the first place, Vice said, "One, it's a pet that was either smuggled in then let go or escaped; or two, it's an animal that arrived on it's own in some sort of a shipment there's recently a cat that made it from Taiwan to the West Coast of the U.S. on a container inside a boat. So it's possible for a mammal to make that cross-oceanic trip. I would suspect that it's probably someone's pet but we can't know for sure until the territorial vet gets a chance to look at it."


Guam's territorial vet returns on Monday, at which time he'll examine the animal to determine whether or not it has rabies and whether or not it has been de-scented. This will help them determine whether or not to euthanize the animal or offer it to the Cushing Zoo in Tumon.