BEND, Ore. — The High Desert Museum has welcomed a new animal ambassador. He’s a cute little stinker who follows the staff just about anywhere they go on the grounds.
“We have a new skunk at the museum. He came here earlier this summer,” wildlife curator John Nelson said. “We auctioned off the naming rights for the skunk at our annual fundraiser in August, the High Desert Rendezvous. And the person who won the name decided to name it Douglas Fur.”
Douglas Fur follows the staff at High Desert Museum like a dog might follow its owner.
“It’s a natural behavior for young skunks to follow, so whenever you see a large group of skunks, typically it’s the mom and the siblings. So this behavior, we captured at a young age and he’s able to follow wherever we go,” Senior Wildlife Outreach Specialist Aaron Rubin said.
Nelson said the Oregon Department of Fish and Wildlife seized the animal from someone in the community. Generally, wild animals are not allowed to be kept as pets.
“But by the time ODFW was able to track down this animal, it had already been in the care of these people for several weeks and was very habituated to people, which made it unsuitable for release back into the wild,” Nelson said. And so they transferred him to us to be used as an education animal.”
“We can walk him anywhere on ground. Oftentimes, I’ll bring him out in the past when we have quite a few visitors and he’ll get to these meet and greets. And we also bring them out for programs, so he also participates in our Mammal Encounter every day at 3:00 p.m. He doesn’t do it every day, but that encounter happens every day. And then our Desert Dwellers program in the summer, he comes out for that as well,” Rubin said.
Douglas Fur does not have a set schedule. The musuem says the best shot to see him in person is to get an annual pass.
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