Asking an American if they've ever seen a Raccoon is like asking a Frenchman if they've ever seen bread

Skunks have a unique but horrible smell. Once you smell it, you will never forget it.

Okay, to answer a couple of your questions: 1. Domesticating raccoons: It has been done, but I think it’s like having a pet gangster. 2. Skunks: “Skunk” is a Native American name for this North American species of a member of the weasel family that occurs on several continents. They secrete some horrible potion from glands in their butts when they feel threatened. And they spray it with force, so you don’t just smell it - you get covered in it. And it’s nice and oily so you can’t easily get rid of it. Not a lot of people are dumb enough to get “skunked” twice. As for the smell, it’s not like poop. It’s more like tear gas. A direct hit from an adult skunk can make you choke, your eyes water - it’s strong stuff. Fortunately, they’re mostly nocturnal, so you have to go to some effort to cross paths with one. We had a skunk living under the front porch of our house once, and it was fine most of the time. We were active in the day, it was active at night. It was only an issue if it got into a fight with another nocturnal animal. Then the skunk fumes were strong enough to wake me out of a sound sleep - on the second floor of the house. 3. Virginia Opossum: Our Friend, the Opossum, is beloved among all right-thinking people in the USA. They are the very definition of “ugly-cute.” They are North America’s only marsupial. They are inoffensive and shy and adorable in behavior if not in looks. They are about the size of a cat, snack on deer ticks, are almost completely immune to rabies, carry their babies on their backs like a mommy-bus, have prehensile tails and forepaws like little hands, and are so sensitive to stress that they literally pass out when frightened, falling into a 10-minute coma at the drop of a hat. It is a sign of good character (imo) to love opossums, and protect and respect them.

Fun fact from an older (57 years old) American. Benjamin Franklin wanted our National Symbol to be a turkey. The exact bird we eat at our national holiday of Thanksgiving. Crazy. Opossums are not very attractive and fierce looking, but are actually very beneficial animals. They eat ticks and many other pests and don't carry rabies. Unlike raccoons. Respect and love opossums.

Skunks don't smell like poop. It is a musk smell. If you have a dog that has been freshly sprayed by a skunk, it is so strong it is like tear gas. It so strong it burns your eyes, makes them water.

A groundhog is like a hamster only if your hamsters are two feet long. It's actually a large ground squirrel. The smell of a skunk is so strong that I passed over a dead one in my car once, and my car smelled of it for a week. Raccoons are very intelligent and have hands. The US didn't get native monkeys but raccoons sort of fill that nuisance roll in our ecosystem.

You're not dumb. We don't know what we don't know. Keep being you. I love listening to you talk.

In the 1960s due to hunting and pesticides damaging bird eggs, the bald eagle was almost extinct in the USA, you could only see it on the remote coasts and around national parks out west. Even in the 90s it was very very rare to see it in the majority of the States. But the today the population has made a huge recovery. I've even seen them around lakes here in Indiana. I think at its lowest point there were maybe 800 left, and now there are over 300,000 in the United States.

As far as I'm aware, many people who keep skunks as pets first have the animal's scent gland removed.

As an Uber driver in Austin I have a joke for the tourists and may give you an idea of the direction of the smell (not poop). "If you're driving through Austin and you smell a skunk, it might be weed. If you are out in the country and smell skunk, it's definitely weed." i.e. Take the sharp smell of strong MJ and multiply until your eyes water and you can't breathe. That's skunk.

Wiley E Coyote Looney Tunes cartoons: The bird also exists. It is called a greater roadrunner, while not actually blue, it is a lovely bird. Spoiler, They don't eat seeds either, They eat things like insects and lizards etc. I live in the Mojave desert and see them regularly. I love them.

Opossums are cute when they aren’t upset and snarling! I like the one who lives in my back yard.

There is a bald eagle named Murphy at a sanctuary in Missouri that can't fly because of an injury when he was younger and in 2023 he built a nest and started trying to incubate a rock during the breeding season since he doesn't have a mate. He even had to be put in a separate enclosure due too him chasing away other eagles protectively, the sanctuary got word of an eaglet-(baby eagle) that fell out of a nest and needed a home do they decided to try and see if Murphy would adopt this eaglet and sure enough he did. He raised him till he was old enough to be released back into the wild and they funnily enough named that eagle Rocky. And now Murphy is raising another eaglet that was found orphaned.

Let me tell you all about "domesticated" racoons: the answer is no. I was at a house party once with a bunch of hippies and punk rock people. We're standing on the front lawn, drinking and having a good time, when a hippy comes up to the party with his pet racoon. Naturally, all the hippies and punks say, "aw man, that's a cool pet! What a cute racoon!" and they pet it, and he goes in the house to get a beer. Going inside, the racoon does the first thing you would expect a racoon to do: it finds the bathroom and immediately tips over the trashcan looking for anything to eat. Then it wanders into the kitchen and knocks that trashcan over too. They're great pets if you're homeless. Not so much if you have a house with standing trashcans lol.

For fans of Warner Brothers cartoons, real roadrunners are only the size of a large crow, or small raven, and they can fly well, so coyotes are no real threat to them.

People have tried domesticating raccoons, but they tend to be destructive when they're kept indoors. I remember reading an article about scientists who wanted to use raccoons as test subjects because of their intelligence. They had to abandon the study because the raccoons kept breaking out of their cages and making a shambles of the lab.

What the hell is a skunk? After you smell one, you will never have to ask that question again.

This is your advanced English lesson for today. You must say it as fast as possible. How much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? As much wood as a woodchuck could chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood.

Skunks have two very different smells. If your dog gets skunked, you need to de-skunk it immediately. If you are driving and smell a skunk, it’s completely different - I was in my 30s before I realized that dead skunk smells like pot smoke (I don’t toke, so didn’t make the connection).

I live in upstate New York. We’ve had both raccoons and opossums on our porch. South of us there used to be an Army Depot. The grounds were fenced off and deer were trapped inside. Because there was no hunting, when a totally white deer was born, it lived to maturity and bred. We ended up with a population of white deer. Since the depot was decommissioned, parts of the fence have been removed and white deer are now scattered across the area. I guess that one animal native to the US that Louis didn’t mention is the wild turkey. I have had to stop twice to let a flock of wild turkeys cross the road. We even had one in our yard. Bald Eagles were reintroduced into our area several decades ago and now we have a number of them locally.

Opossum are very shy. You want them in your yard. They eat bugs, lots of bugs,especially ticks.

I've seen thousands of racoons, and I think most Americans would say the same thing. They're cute, but they are WILD animals! They are also very destructive. In one place I lived they got into our attic from the outside. It took us weeks to get them out. They can be very fierce, and if they attack a person, they can do a lot of damage. They are also rabies carriers. I have never been deliberately mean to a racoon, but I would never try to make friends with one. Groundhogs look like hamsters, but they're about 100 time bigger. I've been skunked. It's like being tear-gassed! Seriously, I ended up vomiting uncontrolably. It doesn't smell anything like "poop." Possums are wonderful! They kill pests like ticks, and they don't carry rabies. Yea Possums! I live in the middle of Providence, Rhode Island, and my yard overlooks a graveyard. We see coyotes in there all the time.

These are incredibly common animals in the U.S., I literally saw half of this list today when going out for breakfast. I have a raccoon living in my barn, and groundhogs all over the back of the property. White tail deer cut through my property every morning (usually about 15 of them). Possums (Opussum, both spellings are acceptable, just a regional difference) are all over the area too. Only saw a roadkilled one today, but they are a frequent sight. And the Bald Eagle, which is a rare sight in my area, I've only seen about a dozen of them over the years in the wild, but one flew right in front of my car this morning. If I can find my SD card reader, I think I caught it on dashcam, it was really close, so I want that video saved. No mule deer in my area. And while we do have coyotes here, I haven't seen any for a couple of weeks now. Same with skunks, they're around, but mostly nocturnal, so I rarely see them, but you can smell when they're nearby. Skunks smell very bad. I hit one with my car once, it took two weeks of going to the car wash daily to get the smell off it.

As a railroader, my run was out in the country. 250 miles, most of it out in the middle of nowhere? The wildlife was spectacular. The peace and solitude was unmatched. I routinely saw bald eagles, deer, possums, raccoons, everything you could possibly imagine? 24/7. That was the best part of my job. Being able to look up in the sky with no lights, and see the Milky Way, watching sunrise and sunsets in all their glory with no light pollution. It was breathtaking at times? I retired July 4th. 30 years. Will never experience that again. It was SO cool? Got stopped onetime, next to a bunch of trees, night time, and hundreds of thousands of lightning bugs were in the trees? It was surreal. Coolest thing I've ever seen.

With as crazy as they look opossums are key to the environment. They are the size of a cat, they're the only marsupial outside of Australia and New Zealand, they eat ticks and other bad insects, and they're not able to get rabies. So all in all a pretty cool animal.

Raccoons can be friendly if you feed them, but they are always wild.

Raccoons can be tamed, my uncle had one as a pet for years. He had to childproof all his cabinets to keep the raccoon out of the food and trash in his house. It’s 11 pm and I’ve got one right now at my critter feeder. I love watching the wild animals and I get squirrel, raccoon, groundhog, opossums. Groundhogs are size of a raccoon.

We have Opossums put up residents in our yard off and on. Love having them, not only do they eat the bugs and snails (that eat up my flowers and garden) but they also keep the rats away which is a huge bonus.

Groundhogs are super cute, kind of like beavers. They're actually pretty chill except when they dig up vegetable gardens.

If you've ever smelt very strong marijuana, you pretty much know what a mild skunk smell is like.

I used to feed a family of wild skunks my table scraps. Their presence kept people away better than an angry pitbull, because that smell lingers forever.

My son has four raccoons that people dumped him with when they decided to be irresponsible. They are house pets but very very active. Vets will not even see them and put them down right away due to rabies fears. We live in Montana and keep telling people to leave the babies in the wild. They are spoiled and loved now but should have been left in the wild. Love your channel.

Andre, you're not dumb and you're not ignorant! You're just in the process of learning and we don't expect you to know everything right away. It's kind of funny though when you asked if any of us have ever seen raccoons because they are incredibly common! I live in Massachusetts and you don't really see them too often because they are nocturnal, but every once in a while you catch a glimpse of them and they definitely make themselves known by doing things like sorting through trash. Skunks, deer, and coyotes are common here as well. By the way, I noticed that you smiled when you mentioned Laurence's cat. You've mentioned also having a cat. I think you should bring your cat on sometime! People love cats! I guarantee that a video featuring your cat would put a lot of smiles on a lot of peoples faces! Maybe you can at least tell us its name?

He picked the worst picture of a possum. They are adorable especially when they're carrying ten kids on their back.

Coyotes are infamous for using the bait tactic on people's pet dogs. They get the dog to chase them or simply follow an attack them with the whole pack. I hear the coyotes often at night in the distance barking and howling which is kinda mixed together so I call it harking lol but anyway that usually means they are running another animal down or have actually done so.

Yes, skunk spray smells like nothing you have ever smelled before and never want to smell again!

I've seen plenty of raccoons, but my favorite raccoon encounter was watching a mother racoon and her babies in a cherry tree picking and eating cherries. Very cute.

Actually its only the Tanuki suit that turns into a statue and its based on myth in folklore about Takuni who have massive testicles and can transform into various forms at will. They are commonly referred to as "raccoon dogs", which probably why the raccoon leaf and tanuki suit tails are similar in pattern and people confuse the two. There are plenty of japanese media which have the mischievous Tanuki prominently featured in them.

You can smell a dead skunk in your car driving by it with the windows and vents closed. It's that potent.

As a child I had a racoon that we rescued that had suffered a crushed paw as a baby, it took so long to rehab the poor little guy he couldn't go back in to the wild so we got to keep him. My grandfather had me do a lot of the bottle feeding and such so he was very attached to me and so I got to name him (Rosco P. Coaltrain from "The Dukes of Hazard" of course). He was a wonderful companion until he passed of old age. It's really a shame they don't have longer life spans. ETA: We also had an opossum somehow befriend our cats and come in through the cat door in to our back shed where I found it munching food out of a bowl along side one of our cats like they were the best of chums. It would come in all the time and only make occasionally hissing protests as either myself or my husband shoved it back out of the cat door with a broom each time.

I love how open-minded and interested you are to learning something new. I hope Santiago will be able to have that too.

Raccoon and Skunk (descented) both can be domesticated, but both animals are primarily nocturnal. If they are left to their own devices, they will be mischievous while you sleep.

I had a friendly family of raccoons living in my yard when I owned a house. I fed them and the stray cats in the neighborhood, and they never bothered each other 😻

"How Bad can Skunk scent be?" You cannot even imagine. At close range, it can cause some people to vomit. Having had the misfortune of being sprayed - I can tell you that it is best avoided. The smell can be removed from your body, with some effort, but you may have to dispose of your clothes and shoes.

In my neighborhood in NH I have seen deer, coyotes, bears, raccoons, ground hogs, skunks, porcupines, possums, fox, and bats. There are Bob cats but never saw one.

I love that he mentioned Coeur D'Alene Idaho. I've lived in that area my entire life, it's beautiful and you see so much wildlife there! It's a beautiful part of the country.

9:27 you can keep a skunk as a pet, but you have to have the musk glands removed first so they don't spray you...

The smell of skunk is right up there with the decomposing body of an animal. It is one of the most disgusting smells I've ever had the misfortune of smelling. It's especially vile when they decide to scent mark a property.

I would imagine that just about every US state has racoon's other than maybe Alaska and Hawaii, and it wouldn't shock me if those states had them as well. A better question, Andre, would have been "have any of you watching NEVER seen a racoon.".

I used to live on a 1000-acre ranch in Northern California, and we had a pair that roosted on top of a high power line tower not too far from our houses. OMG! When these Eagles would fly over our houses, their shadows would shade my entire house making it rather dark. It would cast a shadow on both sides of my house at the same time. It was amazing! I loved watching them fly over. Even though I would see them all the time, every time one would fly over I would stop (pull over if I was on the road and not a ranch road, and just watch them. I remember being a little late for school and telling my teacher that we stopped to watch the bald eagle flying around us. Coyotes are scrawnier and scrappier looking than the wolf. Nowhere as majestic.

Another fact! The bald eagle does not have a loud epic cry like shown on TV typically. That is actually the cry of a hawk as bald eagles actually sound more like sqweekie toys.

LOL - Living in Ohio - I have seen 1000's of racoons...lol. In fact, we were camping, my sister and my kids and I and we always have a netted tent over the picnic table/food area - and put the iron skillet on top of the cooler and the bread/snack bin...all safe ... or usually - but I was hearing notices from in the tent one night - and I look out the tent window with the flashlight see about 8 sets of eyes looking into the light...lol. My daughter wakes up as well as my sister and seeing 4 or 5 racoons had climbed under the tightly attached tent and were really working at getting the iron skillet off of the cooler and had managed to get the two pans on the other bin off and removed the lid! We get out of the tent and take our shoes and throw them toward the animals - and they are so darn cute BUT they just looked at us like "What!" lol We are like get out of here - move it - and after about what seemed like forever - they literally walked in very slow motion out from under the mesh tent and waddled back into the woods.... acting totally ticked off that we had ruined their food adventure....again, they are pretty friendly - they aren't going to attack you - but you certainly can't try to pick them up or pet them - they WILL bite you then ... but I couldn't even get mad that they got into the potato chips and the bread....lol. They don't really make good pets, they will always be very destructive unfortunately....although some people have raised them from babies - IF you find a baby and try to raise it and keep it - most States require a special permit because they are a wild animal... Ohio has 1000's of groundhogs too - see them popping their heads up - again a very cute animal -- but again, will bite etc.. sadly they aren't fast runners - and we see a lot on the side of the road (roadkill).... Yes, 1000's of skunks too . . again a VERY cute little rodent -- that you definitely don't want to approach or scare - or they WILL spray you and it really stinks...they will walk right by you and do nothing - they only spray if they feel trapped or scared... that's why dogs are usually the ones that pay the price...they chase the skunks...and you got it!! And getting that smell off a dog is NOT easy! LOL Yes, Ohio also has 1000's of opossums! They aren't that cute...and they are a very nasty little rodent...what's neat is they carry their babies on their back and if they get scared - they play dead . . . ever heard the expression "playing possum"? or playing dead.... Ohio has 1000's of white tail deer - beautiful animal!!! Yes, we also have deer hunting season . . . Coyote's are actually much thinner than the picture shown - that pic did look like a wolf would.

Raccoons also are high carriers of rabies. AKA "Trash Pandas" nickname. They can get up to 22 pounds or a bit more, They growl, will kill chickens if you raise them and their eggs and young. While camping one of my husbands friends in the middle of the night got up to empty his bladder only to realize he was peeing on a skunk, he did manage to back away without getting sprayed. Where I live in Wisconsin you can see Bald Eagles near the Wisconsin River if your lucky you can see them fishing in the river.

I live in Toronto Canada. And no it isn't snow covered all year round. Currently it is 30°C (86F). Racoons are all over the place. At one point one dug through asphalt to get into our garage for a comfy place to sleep. I have also seen them out in the wild (there are more in the cities). I was camping with boy scouts. We heard a noise and there was a family of raccoons eating a cake that was accidently left out in the dining tent. When they saw us they took off. We could no longer eat the cake so put it near the wall of the tent. A small paw came under the side of tent and pulled it outside. It was cute but had a bad result. The raccoons decided we were the ideal spot for dining. But it was pot luck. They brought the garbage from every nearby campsite into our campsite which we had to clean up.

The critters were here (Canada) long before we were. They serve a purpose. I love skunks and had one in my back yard 2 nights ago. I just spoke to it softly, it looked at me and then carried on digging for grubs in the grass. A friend had an orphaned one as a pet for years. It played with their dog and would sit on the couch with them nibbling on their toes. Raccoons are everywhere. Coyotes sound eerie in the night and you know when they've cornered a prey.☹Canada's west coast has a lot of bald eagles. Opossums look weird but are beneficial and eat a lot of grubs, especially ticks.

Skunk! Well known by cartoons of Pepe le Peu! They are so cute under certain circumstances. Mainly mom and little ones bopping along, checking you out as you stand very still and just take pictures and admire.

You CAN domesticate raccoons if you get them as pups. When I was about 4, we had one that was orphaned. Skunks can also be domesticated as kits, you will need a vet to remove the scent glands. They enjoy digging ...a lot, so mainly an outside pet. The first o in opossum is normally silent so " possum" is what I've heard them called - my whole life. White tails and mule deer, " mulies" are larger than Euro deer. Coyotes CAN be domesticated. It's fairly common here in Nevada

I've had over 20 pet raccoons throughout the years, 6 pet squirrels, 2 pet deer, two skunks, a pet groundhog, a beaver, a fox, a coyote, and I currently have a opossum.

I have Raccoons outside eating corn and sunflower seeds right this very minute, they are out there every night in summer, I also have Bald Eagles that live on my property and they kill my beautiful Songbirds and Woodpeckers, but what are you going to do, they have babies to feed too and their food of choice is other birds and fish! Last year a baby Raccoon was orphaned and we took care of it until winter then it was killed in a snowstorm. The groundhog predicts the weather, or so they say. Skunks often share the food pile with the Raccoons out back. They are adorable, and they rarely let off their stink bomb. It is really awful to be sprayed by a Skunk, they get their stink sac removed if they have them for a pet. We also have Opossums that share the food pile out back. You should see them when they play dead, they foam at the mouth and everything else. Also White-Tailed Deer eat corn at the food pile, only the females though the big Bucks stand back and guard the females and the babies while they eat! We also have Coyotes, but thankfully they stay in the woods! This one was really fun Andre! Great reaction too!

Yes, skunks smell THAT BAD. I live in the woods in ohio and I see all these animals almost every day. And my opossums are huge, some over 20 lbs. They're not like mice, Andre.

We lived in Cripple Creek Colorado. About 10000 ft elevation. A racoon family lived under our porch. They are so darn cute, but will try, with force, to open your doors, swing from the rafters, and tear the siding off your house. Ive heard they love hot dogs, spaghetti, and cherrios!

The tails on White-tail deer are very obvious when they're running away because the white part is the underneath. When they run, the are straight up in the air like flags. Fun when you see a whole herd take off, backends waving. They also like to play chicken with vehicles, especially semi-trucks on the interstates. They are also pretty large. The deer I saw when I was stationed in California were tiny in comparison.

When I was a kid, we have a racoon and a skunk that lived together, under our shed. You really don't want to play with a wild racoon. Recently I had one in my yard, suffering from distemper. We have to make sure to keep our dog away from it. I am very lucky, a neighbor dispatched it for me.

If you live in America. You’ve definitely seen a raccoon.

Skunks have a distinctive scent. It gets in the back of your throat. I had a dog once who went on a skunk killing spree and killed six in six months. About the time everything settled down he’d go after another. I thank God we don’t have porcupines down here where I live. He wouldn’t have survived.

Groundhogs are also called Whistle pigs here. They make a short whistling sound. When startled the flatten out and freeze. The meat is sweetish, like a sweet pork. The Body is ioften used by rural folks as bags.

Poop smells like Roses compared to a skunk. Skunk is like, concentrated rotten pot mixed with fresh cat urine and pureed rank predator feces..... and its as sticky as oily tar, you can never get it off your skin.... Another thing he doesn't note or doesn't know is that American White Tailed Deer get bigger the further north you travel. White tailed deer in Maine are 200-300lbs for a buck and 120-175lbs for a doe.

About skunks, they can make great pets. The smell ends when their scent glands are surgically removed. Adopt a baby skunk then never release it into the wild as without their fragrant abilities the animal wouldn't be as able to defend itself.

The suit in Mario 3 is a tanuki, which is different from a raccoon. Tanuki are dogs and aren't Raccoons at all. So the tanuki costume in Mario 3 is technically a dog costume. The tanuki has more in common with a wolf than a Raccoon.

It’s fun watching your reactions to the wild animals of North America. Eagles are classified as Raptor birds. I have been in a “eagle enclosure” where one was kept in was kept and I was asked if I wanted to pet it,i said no i knew the bird’s reputation for fighting back. Eagles that have been injured and can’t live on their own, live at a sanctuary or a wildlife center become an “ambassador” for educational programs so people get to know about this bird.

Skunks don't actually smell that bad themselves, but they can spray you with liquid stink so intense it can make you physically ill. When I was younger we had a dog that got sprayed by a skunk, and we couldn't bring him into the house for 2 weeks. We washed him every day, and he still smelled so bad it would make you eyes tear up.

lol, yes skunks smell really really really bad. A few years ago I was walking my 2 dogs and all 3 of us got sprayed. It kind of smells like burnt rubber but 100 times worse.

The raccoon, groundhog, and skunks were mostly woodland animals, that as cities grew took their habits and so humans came in contact and saw (smelled in the case of skunks) them. I have had close encounters with all of these. The skunk was a foot away and was just as surprised as me and we just left each other alone.

Andre during a severe storm here in north Texas a few years ago my cousin heard her large tree outside snap. A very large limb snapped and fell and with it a family of raccoons. My cousin already feeds deer on her property so she started feeding them as well. They still come to her porch every night and this past spring the momma proudly, but cautiously brought her baby to her to be hand fed.

Just north of him in WI are a LOT of American bald Eagles.. a great effort to save them succeeded. A short 3 hour drive to Sauk City, or prairieDuSac WI on the Wisconsin River in the winter will see a lot of the eagles in the winter.

Raccoons are everywhere where I'm at. I also have a woodchuck and her family that lives under my workshop. They are cool and don't hurt anyone. Bald Eagle's were very rare (very endangered because of pesticides), but they have been protected, and their numbers are greatly increasing. The first I I ever saw a Bald Eagle in the wild was about 20-25 years ago. I live near a large river and several lakes, and I will see many!!! They are truly majestic!!! There are also black bears here, coyotes, foxes, bobcats, deer, wild turkey, billions of squirrels, wild hogs, prairie sogs, beaver 🦫, possums, armadillos, skunks amongst other critters!!! Most of these animals are night animals, and you won't come in contact with them.

Raccoons have a vicious bite. As a child, I grew tomatoes in the back yard and periodically a skunk would get into my tomato patch and when we would let our 2 beagles out into the yard they would chase the skunk and get sprayed. Then somebody in the family would have to give the dogs bath--no fun at all. Raccoons, skunks, groundhogs, opossums . . . I feel like the armadillo doesn't get fair treatment on KZfaq.

Raccoons are absolutely everywhere in America. A couple hours drive from where I live is Raccoon Creek State Park, in Pennsylvania. We used to go there as a kid because there's a lake and that's the closest "beach" until you get to Lake Erie. And bald eagles are kinda rare. For the longest time they used to be hunted and almost went extinct until we made them a protected species. It's illegal to tamper with their nests, and only certain licensed Natives are allowed to harvest the feathers. There's a nesting pair near my home that has a livecam set up that is available to the public to watch.

Skunk smell is impossible to describe, but the comparisons to rotting carcasses gives you a pretty good idea. The scent is also difficult to remove from fabric. Sometimes the only thing you can do with affected clothing is throw it away. Nevertheless, skunks are really interesting animals. They actually prefer not to spray. Once they use their spray, their bodies take a week and a half to make more. Skunks usually only spray when they're completely cornered, and even then, they send warning signals first. In my opinion, the coolest things about skunks is that they can eat snakes because they're immune to venom.

Funny story…. I lived in an apartment and the trash dumpsters always had raccoons in them. Taking out the garbage was a 2 person thing. One of us would run out and open the dumpster. Then we would wait for the raccoons to run out, etc. then the next person would run out and throw the garbage into the dumpster. Then the first person would run back and close the dumpster. 🙈😂

Thank you for your content and for giving us the opportunity to experience The States through your reactions. If you knew everything about America... then what fun would it be to react to the videos?! In terms of size Opossums (possums) are closer to the size of a house cat when fully grown (4-14 lb / 1.8-6.35 kg.) It's similar with Groundhogs, but they are quite thick and substantial (5-13 lb / 2.26 -5.9 kg.) Neither are small like hamsters.

I love watching your reactions. You certainly aren’t dumb because you’ve never lived where these animals live. It’s fun hearing you trying to figure things out. The smell of a skunk is pretty rank. The worst part is it lasts a very long time. It’s hard to wash off. When people try to keep skunks as pets, they have them “descented”. I understand that doesn’t always completely take care of the problem. Opossoms have huge teeth but aren’t aggressive. They will always leave the area if you give them a chance.

Opossums aren't mice. They are Marsupials (pouches they raise their young in) and they are about the size of a small dog. They look way scarier then they are.

Fun fact for the uninitiated: striped and spotted skunks have distinctive smells and you can get to know the difference. Spotted skunks are extremely flat and can get in places you wouldn't think possible.

Raccoons when they are chased by dogs will swim out into water and when the dog goes after him he climbs onto the dogs head and drowns him

Raccoons were common pets in Italy, I heard, and still kept as pets in Japan.

You can't be expected to know all the wild animals in another country. Racoons seem to be everywhere in North America and can be a real nuisance since they have thumbs to open everything just like we do. They do not domesticate well. They will tear up your house. Groundhogs are much bigger than a hamster, but I have never seen a live one. I have seen and smelled a skunk, but not up close. If they spray you with their smell they say it is very hard to remove the odor from your clothing and body. Opossums or possums are really mean and can be really big. One stared me down and ran me out of my back yard once. I LOVE COYOTES!! They are so smart and resourceful. They have infiltrated our cities and live peacefully with humans by becoming nocturnal. We have thousands in Chicago and occasionally people see them. I saw one on my block near downtown Chicago AT 3:00 am once. They are beautiful. They have drastically reduced the rabbit population though.

I don’t think anyone says O possum. You just say possum. Silent O.

Wait for the explanation. We typically don't use the word "animal" to describe fish, birds, or insects. Although a Bald Eagle is an "animal" we commonly think the word "bird", we tend to be more specific between flying and swimming animals.

Living in Indiana, I regularly see raccoons, possums, groundhogs and skunks visiting the cat food bowls outside.

Up until I was 12 years old, we lived on a farm. We had a Samoyed dog who regularly prowled the fields, catching groundhogs. He'd drag them into the front yard of the house, where my dad, grandfather, or Dad's first cousin would have to clean the mess up. They didn't mind too much, because they didn't want their burrows creating a hazard for the cattle. However, no one was very happy when the dog decided he could take on a skunk too, and he didn't learn from his mistakes.

Raccons are pretty cool... I see them regularly in the parking lot of my apartment building next to the woods. I love the little "Trash Pandas' 😂

FYI: Groundhog's Day is a cross-quarter day. Cross-quarter days are half way between the solstices and the equinoxes. They are Groundhog's Day on Feb 2, May Day on May 1, August 2 which doesn't have a name, and Halloween on Oct 31. Groundhog's Day and Halloween are celebrate in North America and May Day is celebrated in eastern Europe.

Skunk's terrible smell is actually one of the smartest defense mechanisms I've seen in nature. It's not that they smell bad all the time - but when they feel threatened they spray this incredibly foul-smelling, sulphur-y liquid at their attackers. If the liquid gets on you then the smell sticks to you for WEEKS. I assume this is very effective at helping skunks not to get eaten by predators, because who wants to deal with that? If you look at American media, for a while in the 90s many kids shows had some kind of "this character/pet was sprayed by a skunk and now we have to try to get the smell out of them" episode.

Coyotes are smaller than wolves, and even more skittish of human contact. But they much more frequently come into contact with humans, and not just because there are a lot more of them. Coyotes have started living in the more undeveloped parts of many US cities, mostly in parks. And, of course, they are resident in many suburban areas. In the eastern US we have a special "coyote" called a coywolf. It's actually a coyote-wolf hybrid. It's nearly as big as a wolf, but it fortunately still behaves like a coyote (i.e. they really prefer to avoid humans). I saw one trotting through a neighborhood that I was driving through one morning in Arlington, Virginia. There just happened to be a guy out walking his German shepherd at the time. That coywolf was about 25% bigger than that German shepherd. It was a pretty impressive thing to behold.

Im from Indiana as well. My family used to camp at this campground where we could pay one price to leave our campers there all summer long. That way we could go camping there whenever we wanted to. There were 3 campers right next to each other with some of our friend's camping around us. The raccoons kept getting into our stuff outside. My brother chased one off. It began climbing a tree, and he threw a piece of cardboard (the thin light weight type) to try to frighten it from coming back. But the cardboard accidentally hit the raccoon in the temple of its head, and it fell from the tree and was convulsing on the ground. We went to try and help it, but it was understandably really angry. It got up and walked off, twitching and wobbling like it was drunk and making sounds. It wanted revenge. We were all very tired because our family had to do the fireworks display for America's Birthday that night at the campground. We did not have the fancy type of campers that rich people have. So we had to walk to the restrooms at the campground that everyone used. I opened the camper door at about 6am and saw that the raccoons had came in the night and pulled the kid's sand toys out and shredded many of them up, pulled the trash out of the bins and spread it around, tore up the camping chairs and completely trashed only our 3 campsites. There were many other campsites there but only ours got destroyed because my brother accidently hit that coon in the head making it turn twitchy. I went back in my camper and peed in an empty disposable ice cream bucket and put the lid back on it and went back to bed. The others did the same. Later on we got up to clean it all up. My aunt rescued a baby racoon because it's mother was dead on the road. The baby was uninjured on the side. She took it home and fed it until it grew up. It used the liter box like a cat. She lived in an old house in the woods. She kept her window open so it could come and go as it pleased. It eventually had babies up high in a tree and would sometimes come visit but it returned to the wild. A lot of people who keep raccoons as pets say that the coon wants to go back to the wild once they grow up and they will get mean if they are not allowed to go back. My aunt also found a baby deer on the side of the road. The mother was hit and killed by a car. The baby became potty trained to only go potty outside like her dogs did. She fed it with a bottle until it got big enough to go outside to run around with the dogs as it grazed. She put a bright orange hanky on it in hopes that hunters would not shoot it. It never came back. It went wild. Some people keep Possums for pets. They look terrifying but are actually cuddly babies but one should still not touch or pick them up because they are wild. They would get in the heated little cat house I had for my outdoor barn cats in the winter and snuggle with the cats eating their food. And eating the duck's eggs if they made their nests outside of the coop. The campground up near the Sleeping Bear Sand Dunes always had tame wild raccoons and skinks that were used to people. Because of that we would be sitting at the picnic table at night time eating and suddenly feel a skunk walking under the table. We had to not move or legs or it might scare the skunk which could cause it to spray us. This happened a lot. They would take food out of our hands. So would the squirrels and chip munks. One night one of the kids did not eat all their food and they scrapped the food off their plate in the woods behind our tent. In the middle of the night, we heard a lot of fighting going on, and a skunk sprayed a racoon, which happened to be standing by our tent. We all came running out of the tent gagging with our eyes watering. The smell was unbearable. It smelled like bad sweety armpits combined with pungent feet and sickening rotting sweat fruit combined on steroids. The smell is soo powerful that is carries for miles. Other campers were waking up to gag and cough and dry heave. A campground full of people wretching. There was no other place to go sleep. It was too hot to sleep in the van. We grabbed our blankets and went and slept on this one old log cabin porch but the smell was bad there too. People were gagging and coughing looking for places to sleep that was farther away. I think some people walked on the short trail to the beach to sleep in the sand at Lake Michigan. I was raised by a rail road tracks. At night time the train whistle made them howl. At night time I would sometimes go outside and howl to see if they were in our woods near by. They would always answer back with their combo of yipping & howling in various sections all around me. I liked sleeping outside especially in our woods to camp, but I took our dogs with me. The cyotes were afraid of the campfire and the dogs. They don't wanna mess with humans much anyways, but I had protection just incase. I enjoyed watching your reactions. 😊🥰🙂💜🌻 Have a good week and weekend.

They give a warning before spraying, they do a hand stand with butt in the air. Confuses cats terribly

skunks are sometimes kept as pets even if they probably shouldn't be, when someone does keep one as a pet they almost always have the spray gland removed so they cant spray the smell any longer. Its naturally a defense mechanism for the skunk to get away from predators it doesn't just smell, it'll burn your eyes and make them watery so the skunk can make its escape.

Everything on that list except mule deer are very common in my area (VA). Bald eagles and coyotes are a bit less common here, but raccoons, skunks, white-tail deer, opossums, and groundhogs are common sights. I don’t know how to describe the skunk smell, but if you smell it once, you’ll know it forever. It’s very common to smell it in the spring when skunks are looking for mates and get hit by cars frequently. If your dog gets sprayed by a skunk, it takes days to get that smell off. Raccoons are very cute, annoying, sometimes carry rabies, and can be vicious. My mom had one as a pet when she was young, but only until it reached maturity. Opossums are scary looking, but very beneficial and they aren’t dangerous. They eat a lot of ticks, helping to reduce Lyme disease. Their body temperature is too low to carry rabies, and when they feel threatened they ‘play dead’. It’s really a biological defense they have no control over. They get stiff and release a smell like decay and they breathe very shallowly.

One of the coolest american animals not mentioned here is the Hummingbird. They are tiny birds that drink nectar from flowers and can hover and reverse in the air. They are amazing.