Woman spends 12 hours trying to catch runaway skunk

The skunk was caught after a 12-hour ordeal, having hidden under decking at a house in Nassington

A woman who spent 12 hours trying to catch a runaway skunk in her garden has said she originally mistook it for a badger.

Clare Blake spotted the creature roaming at her home in Nassington, Northamptonshire, and went on to live stream her three-hour ordeal of trying to catch it on TikTok.

The mammal was eventually caught in a fox trap - at the home near Peterborough.

"I have always wanted to be famous but I did not know it would be for having a skunk in my garden," she said.

The skunk is now being looked after at the Exotic Pet Refuge, an animal rescue and rehabilitation centre in Deeping St James, Lincolnshire.

Ms Blake, who had returned from New Zealand the day before, had been sitting in her kitchen having a coffee, when she leant "forward and thought 'what is that'?"

Speaking to BBC Look East, she said the RSPCA animal charity wanted to make sure it was a skunk hiding under her decking and not a "rogue badger".

"I put some eggs and chicken in the hole where it was, just behind me, and low and behold, thank God he made an appearance."

Clare Blake videoed the animal in her garden and the subsequent rescue

While the RSPCA were there, she said she put "a load" of roast chicken down, however, the infamously smelly animal was too light to trigger the humane trap.

Instead, Ms Blake said she was live streaming the ordeal on TikTok while she sat with a piece of string waiting for the skunk to return so she could trap it.

"It took me a labour of three hours live on TikTok sitting there with a piece of string against the gate. Because he had so much chicken during the time with the RSPCA trying to catch him, he went back up and went to sleep," she said.

"Eventually three hours on the dot, he came out, went into the cage and I caught him."

The animal was nicknamed "Chunk" by someone watching the video and she joked he had "lived his best skunk life for 24 hours".

The RSPCA collected it the next day and the charity found he was not chipped.

Hollie Morrall, an animal rescue officer, said: "We are pretty certain that this skunk is an escaped pet but, if not, the skunk may have escaped from another setting, such as a rescue centre or a zoo."