{"id":634023,"date":"2026-05-10T03:18:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-10T03:18:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/634023\/"},"modified":"2026-05-10T03:18:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-10T03:18:08","slug":"colorado-police-help-unlucky-skunk-stuck-in-a-cup","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/634023\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado police help unlucky skunk stuck in a cup"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>This <a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/02\/13\/us-news\/skunk-mating-season-brings-chaos-to-ca-neighborhood-unwanted-for-valentines-day\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">skunk\u2019s <\/a>cup runneth over with good luck.<\/p>\n<p>The unlucky critter was saved by a caring Colorado police officer who put the critter\u2019s life above the potential of a big stink when it was seen stumbling through a<a href=\"https:\/\/nypost.com\/2026\/05\/09\/us-news\/no-parking-for-nj-world-cup-has-nearby-towns-police-dept-issuing-warning\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"> parking lot <\/a>at 3 a.m. with its head stuck in a cup.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.3781965;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39333285\" width=\"813\" height=\"590\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-09-at-74103-PM.jpg\" alt=\"A skunk near a dropped fast food cup on cracked asphalt, with a person's shadow visible.\" class=\"wp-image-39333285\"  \/>An unfortunate skunk had a cup stuck on its head before a police officer manually removed it. Parker Police Department<\/p>\n<p>After a few failed attempts to use a catchpole tool, the officer went hands-on, successfully popping the cup off the pungent polecat\u2019s noggin.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLittering stinks!\u201d<a href=\"https:\/\/app.slack.com\/client\/EAZPKTY6A\/G1DTJ1VNX\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"> wrote <\/a>the Parker Police Department on Facebook in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>The skunk, apparently grateful for the rescue, decided not to leave a the parting gift of near-permanent odor and \u201cwaddled off\u201d into the night.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAll jokes aside, this is a good reminder that littering does not just make our community look bad, it can seriously harm wildlife,\u201d the statement continued.<\/p>\n<p>Skunks have a torpedo-like head, and litter \u2014 specifically discarded food containers \u2014 is a significant and often fatal hazard.<\/p>\n<p><img style=\"aspect-ratio:1.80599647;display:block\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" data-modal-image=\"39333288\" width=\"1024\" height=\"567\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Screenshot-2026-05-09-at-74438-PM.jpg\" alt=\"Body camera footage shows a hand reaching towards a skunk near a discarded cup on the asphalt.\" class=\"wp-image-39333288\"  \/>An officer reaches toward the skink to remove the cup with his hand, after failing to remove it with a catchpole. Parker Police Department<\/p>\n<p>In a global study of animals trapped in discarded containers, mammals (including skunks) accounted for nearly<a href=\"https:\/\/pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov\/articles\/PMC7801720\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\"> 78.5% of all cases<\/a>. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This skunk\u2019s cup runneth over with good luck. The unlucky critter was saved by a caring Colorado police&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634024,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[3755,1147,18379,1583,79,194,201],"class_list":["post-634023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-animal-rescue","tag-animals","tag-cute-animals","tag-police","tag-science","tag-us-news","tag-wildlife"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=634023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634023\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}