While it’s not common to see skunks in the Lake Tahoe Basin, they are here.

A dog recently got sprayed in the Cathedral Road area of the South Shore.

“We do have skunks in the basin, but the main population is on the Western Slope,” Carla Hass, spokeswoman for El Dorado County, told Lake Tahoe News. “We haven’t received rabies reports or other issues in the last 17 years. We’d simply remind people to obey the leash laws as they help keep dogs from interacting with wildlife, which in turn keep dogs from having to be quarantined.”

Tom Millham, co-owner of Lake Tahoe Wildlife Care, said one of the great things about skunks is they help reduce the mice population.

“If you have mice under your house and a skunk moves in, no more mice,” Millham told Lake Tahoe News. “Once the skunk has taken care of all the mice there, it will move on to another location and look for a meal there.”

He said there isn’t much dog owners can do if they don’t have their pets leashed. The dog is going to get sprayed if it comes near a skunk. And the smell – it lingers and is hard to get rid of.

 — Lake Tahoe News staff report