A Kansas couple was on a walk when a family of skunks crossed their path, video shows

Belen Puga and his wife, Deb, were on a walk when something unusual crossed their path — a family of skunks.

The couple was walking in the Riverside neighborhood of Wichita, Kansas, when the momma skunk and her six skunk children — or kits — scurried across the street.

“I have to admit it was a total surprise and they were pretty close to us,” Puga posted to Facebook on July 25.

As the striped skunks started to cross the road, Puga began to take a video.

In the video now posted to Facebook, the seven skunks are seen crossing the road. About five seconds in, the skunk mom jumps up on the curb before the rest of the family follows her into the grass.

The skunks them scamper past a row of trees before crossing the sidewalk and continuing into the neighborhood out of site from the camera.

Charlie Cope, a biologist with the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism, told The Wichita Eagle he is certain that the seven skunks are all part of the same family. The average litter includes about six to seven skunks, he said.

Skunks typically breed as late as March, Cope said, and they have an 8-week gestation period before the babies are born.

That would mean the six kits are about 8 weeks old now, which is when they first leave the den and start to forage with their mom, Cope said.

After watching the video, Cope said it looks like the mom skunk may have been looking for food while teaching her young “how to be skunks.” The skunk family is likely to live together until the fall, Cope said, and then they will disperse and live on their own.

While skunks are nocturnal and usually only roam at night, Cope said there are several reasons the family might have been out during broad daylight.

“Yeah, people think they have rabies if they’re out in middle of the day, but there’s no way to know that from this video,” Cope said.

Other possible reasons include a person or a dog scaring them from their home, rain water getting too high and driving them away or the mom may have just decided it was time to move. Cope said a mother skunk usually will move from the burrow she raised her young inside of after about 10 weeks.

Still, Cope encourages people to vaccinate their pets because of the risk of being bit by a rabid skunk. In Kansas, the striped skunk often accounts for 80 percent of the animals that test positive for rabies each year.

This story was originally published August 2, 2018 at 1:18 PM with the headline "A Kansas couple was on a walk when a family of skunks crossed their path, video shows."