> > I have disposed of a couple of nocturnal coons with a big
>> > Havahart trap. I live in the city , but by a railroad track with a
>> > variety of wildlife. I'd never thought about what I'd do if I caught >a
>> > skunk in the thing until I saw one in the yard one morning. What a
>> > mess that could be.
>
>I had one of those idiotic traps. I say idiotic since only an idiotic animal
>can be caught in it. But, I did actually catch a skunk and what I did was
>carefully and I do mean carefully, insert the trap into a contractors
>plastic bag. These are big suckers and made from something like 4 or 5 mil.
>plastic. I did the insertion from the rear I should add. I'm sure this will
>bring copious amounts of ribald comment, but it is important to know. >
>I then moved the trap to an area outside of my garden and set the little
>sucker free. He/she/it seemed happy enough to get away so I didn't suffer
>any long lasting memories of the encounter.
Perhaps the trap could be fashioned so that the bag could be closed over it from a distance (in lieu of the original poster's fear of what might go wrong). How that would work: I'm presuming the contractors' bags have a diameter at least big enough to contain the length of a skunk-sized trap; so take some wire, cable, or even stiff plastic and loosely tape it around the edges of the bag to make a "hula hoop" or croquet hoop type structure. Place the bag "inside" the trap but keep the bag open, with the hoop on the ground, surrounding the trap. Attach string or wire to the far side of the hoop and clip or weight the fore portion to the ground so that it can be pulled forward sort of like the way a mousetrap works (and the bag drawn over the trap) from a distance. Test your setup first to see that it works smoothly. Inventive persons can add variations on how this is done, but you get the idea.