2000-08-09 - 20:23:36

A skunk was caught in one of his traps, so Trapper Nick took a 10-foot pole out of his truck and a bottle dimethyl keotone. Joining him in his quest were four-year-old Lucas; one-year-old Eleanor; Lynden, the photographer; and me, the reporter. This was yesterday.

He doesn't usually go by "Trapper Nick," but that's what we had taken to calling him at the office. Generally it's just Nick. And this day, it was Captain Hook, since Lucas was playing his pirate games, occasionally calling out, "shimmer me timbers!" Lucas was Long John Silver, Lynden was Black Dog, I was Bluebeard and Eleanor was Tiger Lily.

Once a week, the kids come along with Nick on his trapping jobs around the county. To pass the time, they listen to the "Aristocats" in the car, eat the occasional Teddy Grahams, and play pirate.

I suppose you can feel like a pirate in his job, hunting down varmints and hoping the animal rights people don't get upset. And you add an element of danger when you get a year-old child in range of a poisonous syringe. But mostly, you probably just feel like you're doing your job.

We checked out the traps around the apartment complex. One had been tipped over by a wily raccoon, the mini-marshmallows inside taken out. The other one, which was right next to the sliding glass door of an apartment, had the skunk.

Before he went after it, Nick sat Eleanor and Lucas off to the side. A lady opened her door to see what was happening. He tried to tell her to close the door, but she spoke only Spanish.

"Sorro," he said with rolling R's, because he understood that meant "skunk" in Spanish.

"No English," she said. Maybe that didn't mean skunk after all.

"Close the door," he said, motioning with his hands. She closed the door.

He stuck the needle at the end of the pole into the bottle and filled it with the chemical. Then he slowly reached out and pulled the wire trap out of the bush. Any sudden motion could move him to spray. Lynden was taking pictures like crazy.

Lucas was keeping his distance, but Eleanor decided she wanted her dad. Nick was slowly, so as not to scare the skunk, getting the syringe into the cage. Eleanor started running up to him and he tried to shoo her away. I picked her up and moved her away.

You want to keep your distance and not interfere with a scene in journalism, particularly when the photographer's taking pictures, but in interest of keeping a baby from being sprayed by a skunk, and keeping her away from the poison, I had to step in. She kept running up to him as he tried to inject the skunk, and I kept pulling her away. Finally, I just picked her up and held her. Nick got the needle into the skunk, where it punctured its lungs. It stopped walking around its cage and lay down.

Then Eleanor walked up to her dad and watched him tip the cage, making sure the skunk was dead. It just flopped around, so he dumped it onto the ground. Then he took a plastic bag out of his pocket, put the skunk in it, and tied it up. Eleanor seemed quite unmoved.

By this time, the Spanish-speaking family had come out to see what was happening. They tried to say something, but only Lynden knew any Spanish, and not much at all, it turns out. They said something containing the work "zoological," Lynden deduced, and we made lots of gestures back and forth.

The woman saw Eleanor and picked her up.

"Hey, that's ours," Lucas said, trying to get his sister back.

"I think we can work out a deal," his dad said.

He picked up his pole and skunk bag and reset the trap. The lady put down Eleanor. We passed a few more misunderstood words, waved goodbye, and headed onto the next stop, where we would pick up some raccoons.

Captain Hook had killed his skunk. Tiger Lily had been saved. And having witnessed my first skunk-killing, maybe I felt a bit more like Bluebeard. But mostly I just felt like someone doing his job. I don't know why I always wind up with these animal stories.

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