Their little family grew ❤️
A few years back, Newhouse Wildlife Rescue came to the aid of a skunk in a dire situation. The poor animal had suffered a severe injury after her leg became trapped in an illegal device. Upon closer examination, the rescuers made a heartbreaking discovery — the skunk was a mother. Despite their efforts, animal control couldn’t locate her babies anywhere.
Around the same time, an orphaned baby skunk was brought to the rescue. With both animals in need, Jane Newhouse, the founder of Newhouse Wildlife Rescue, saw a chance for them to bring comfort to one another. “We had a lonely little baby with no siblings and a grieving mom with no babies,” Newhouse shared with The Dodo.
Hoping for a positive outcome, Newhouse introduced the two skunks to one another. The goal was to see if their connection could bring healing to both.
The first meeting was tense, with everyone watching anxiously to see how the mama skunk would react. But almost instantly, her maternal instincts took over.
“She leaned into the baby protectively,” Newhouse recalled. “Despite her injuries, she stood as if shielding the baby, like, ‘Don’t you dare touch this one.’” The sight was moving but not entirely surprising to Newhouse, who had often witnessed animals fostering others’ young.
“There’s more emotional depth in wildlife than people give them credit for,” she explained.
Skunks, often recognized solely for their pungent defense mechanism, are far more complex, according to Newhouse. “People see them as a nuisance because of their smell, but they’re intelligent, emotional, and incredibly playful animals,” she noted from her years of experience as a wildlife rehabilitator.
Then, just a day after the mama skunk bonded with the orphaned baby, a miraculous update came from animal control: they had located the mother’s missing babies. The reunion was heartwarming as the babies immediately accepted their new sibling.
Newhouse Wildlife Rescue cared for the entire skunk family until the mother had fully recovered and her young ones were ready to thrive in the wild. Finally, the time came to set them free.
“We released them together as one united family,” Newhouse said, reflecting on the rescue’s success.