The Skunk Whisperer's Story - An Autobiography By Ned Bruha
"My parents purchased an old yellow brick schoolhouse which had doubled
as the town hall, and then remodeled it to be my childhood home. My Wisconsin backyard
included an old graveyard which produced one of my first jobs. This graveyard backed
up to an orchard, acres of woods, and even more acres of farm and marsh land.
Across the street lied a country block of crops and a wild critter paradise. This was home.
This was also home for what would eventually turn out to be the love of my life wildlife.
Ours was a changing eco-system. We did not have many squirrels, rabbits, or turkey as they
were not well established back then. My first hunting trips were more observation
and tracking than shooting. I was taught that because we did not have many of these wild species,
it was irresponsible for a true sportsman to harvest these specific animals.
At age seven, I was given every childs standard issue Crossman 10-pump pellet rifle and a
K-Mart Junior 410, along with cage traps. I was finally allowed to hang up my childhood
axe handle "rifle" on the nail in the girls outhouse, forever in trade for the real things.
My mission? Firearm responsibilities and stopping thirteen lined ground squirrels (otherwise
known as chipmunks or ground squirrels) from burrowing into and making their dens inside of area
grave sites. Every Memorial Day, I took delivery of new flags to replace the weathered flags
that adorned the grave sites of war veterans in our cemetery. The old flags were removed and
disposed of respectfully. Spring promised the beginning of my yearly mission - wildlife prevention and control.
Badgers, woodchucks, and skunks undermined the woodpiles I personally stacked.
Coyotes and badgers raided the chicken coop. Chipmunks desecrated graves. And I was in awe.
At age seven, when your father asks you why you cannot stop the chipmunks from desecrating a grave site,
there's not a whole lot more to say than "I cannot shoot or trap them all, Dad." I will always remember
when Dad said "Alright then, come with me boy". My father took me up to the chicken coop and we started
digging. "Why are we digging, dad?"; then we hit metal. What we quickly unearthed was hardware cloth
and chicken wire, along with some galvanized sheet metal, which was formed along the bottom edge all the
way around the chicken coop in an "L" shape to keep predators from being able to dig under and steal
some of my favorite childhood friends (Rhode Island Reds, Leghorns and Marans). Every Easter and on
my birthday, these chickens would lay colored eggs and bring me gifts like toy tanks and candy,
as well as the rabbits, who were all tucked safely away in rabbit hutches well above ground level,
safely away from most of the predators.
Chipmunks taught me to respect wildlife and their domain. Proof of my first hard learned
lesson in respect can still be seen on my face today. In order to get a closer look at
a chipmunk den and tunnel system, I decided to exhume a chipmunk family that was making
holes immediately under our swing set.
Knowing full well that at lest two chipmunks were
in the tunnel system, I blocked exits with garden spades and trowels. Not having another way out,
a chipmunk popped out of the hole left open and placed his permanent mark on the left corner of
my forehead. Still today, you can see the mark caused by the chipmunk bite. It became infected with ringworm,
leaving a round scar.
I was taught that time spent in the woods in preparation for any hunting season was mandatory.
Going out on opening day of deer season, sitting and waiting for the first deer to walk by was
not hunting; that was simply shooting a deer, and therefore wrong. Although an avid gun
collector and outdoorsman, I was never raised to kill everything, but rather to enjoy
everything. Spotting scopes, along with wildlife and bird species identification books
placed in the living room at two different viewing stations, allowed us to view from afar,
appreciate, and learn wildlife habits. Knowing what food they preferred and what food they
would eat if they had to, made me feel like I was part of their lives; and I was.
Sitting down in the woods on opening day was no more important than any other day in the woods,
except for the fact that social pressures mandate a tagged deer. After two tagged deer later,
and a lot more appreciation for their habits under my belt, I realized, as I still do, that I
couldn't have cared less about bringing home a deer. I realized that knowing where the specific
deer that you wanted would be, at what time, and why he would be there; was more valuable than
shooting or eating that animal.
My ashes will be distributed in the creek that flows through Heyburn Wildlife Management area in Oklahoma.
The creek is almost always interrupted with beaver dams and it snakes through acres upon acres that I learned
to know like the back of my hand. One day in 1996, while exploring Heyburn WMA, I came across a gentleman who
was releasing caged red squirrels. He explained to me that he trapped for a living and that he had been
releasing countless red squirrels there for a decade. Because of how few there were there, I had
previously decided that I did not want to hunt them. I could not comprehend how so many squirrels
could be transplanted unsuccessfully. After all, the wild turkeys in Wisconsin were dragging their
beards on the ground now, whereas when I was growing up, there were none. Why were red squirrels not
being relocated successfully here? How did they die, or where did they all go? I knew every inch of
this property; surely I would have seen where they called home if relocating wildlife was truly humane.
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The first several years of deer season in Oklahoma infuriated me. Enjoying public property was
difficult compared to the hundreds of acres that I had access to as a child. The deer in
Oklahoma were the size of greyhound dogs compared to the Wisconsin White-tailed deer. Hunting
regulations were different than Wisconsins were back then, and Oklahoma allowed for the use of a .357
revolver in a tree. Watching the greyhound dog sized doe walk under my tree and sniff around
knowing that I was there, yet still unable to locate my whereabouts, always made me giddy.
Simply dropping my Ruger .357 three screw would have tagged her. A half hour after season opening,
I allowed her to walk three hundred yards, watched blaze orange appear, and the deer I had come to
know over the last two months, to perish. The following year, after a considerable amount of
scouting, one half hour after season opening; a group of city hunters came in laughing,
talking, and smoking cigarettes. They planted their naïve blaze orange bodies on their small
coolers full of beer and soda, not more than 75 yards from me. After they were gone (never once
noticing that they were within 75 yards of another hunter), I walked past where they sat, and
I picked up their beer and soda cans, along with their cigarette butts with lipstick on a few of them.
I shredded my hunting license and placed it in one of the cans, before placing it in the garbage at home.
When rock stars of our industry call me a bunny hugger, the label no longer offends me.
I was raised to believe in animal welfare, not animal rights. I did not realize that I
was of a different breed. We continue to develop their ecosystem into roads and houses.
If I was a squirrel, raccoon, flying squirrel, or opossum and you had a hole leading into
an attic full of warm, fuzzy insulation, I would be silly not to move in. If you provided
me with a tree for a ladder onto your rooftop, it would be ridiculous not to utilize it.
If you laid new sod in your backyard and then watered it excessively, causing more grubs to
come to the surface, I would be silly not to partake of the grubs and move into your
crawlspace because you left the crawlspace door open. If I was a rat and you provided
me with free bird food, it would be suicidal not to accept the handout and create a new
territory. If I was a snake, it would not be within my nature to resist moving onto your
property, living under your raised outbuilding, and to partake of the abundant rats and mice
brought about by your feeding the birds. If you refuse to stop feeding the birds, expect trouble.
If you refuse to quit feeding the birds, also remember that when you go on that winter
vacation and your feeder is empty, you very likely will have a negative impact on the
lives of many birds that have become totally dependant on your bird food. If this form
of common sense is a sign of weakness, I am a camouflaged, wet noodle.
Not being allowed to watch television very often growing up was obviously beneficial to my future.
Although I missed out on The Dukes of Hazzard and Marty Stouffers Wild America; I gained a wealth
of knowledge and an understanding heart via time spent outdoors. When I came home, proudly showing
my bride the lone raccoon I had trapped at a clients home, she asked in a voice that feared the
worst "Ok, now what are you going to do with him? You're not going to hurt him, are you?" I know
that my bride is not the only person who knows that the critters current eco-system is the best
place for it. My wife reinforced my fathers teachings and was very instrumental in
turning The Skunk Whisperer, Inc. into what it is today.
Deep down, nobody really wants their nuisance wildlife to suffer or be killed.
I know that if people understood that altering their immediate surroundings would
not only be a cost effective solution, but would also allow them to coexist, they
would do so. People know what they are taught and grow up with. I know that if
folks understood that a raccoon had a few other dens within walking distance of
your attic, that they would not relocate or kill them so quickly.
So many people were raised so differently that their immediate response is
"Kill the raccoon, kill the squirrel, or kill the rat that is costing me money".
My upbringing has taught me other solutions.
My entire family is, and was, teachers. What is even more rewarding than allowing clients to
coexist with wildlife is teaching children and potential new Skunk Whisperer office prospects
how to co-exist and share this dream. If you do what you love for a living, you will never
work a day in your life. My father told me that in this day and age, making a living doing
what you loved was a rare opportunity, and that this was the smartest thing I have ever done.
Change is scary though. Many nuisance wildlife control operators cannot fathom not removing the
"nuisance" animals and say that it cannot work or should not be done. If common sense, heights,
hard work and money do not offend you,
perhaps you can assist us in showing them what crow tastes like,
and proving them wrong. You will be bettering yourself, wildlife and the great outdoors too.
If you are a sportsman, hunter, fisherman, friend, mother, father, brother or sister, and you
have the chance to take somebody younger out to the woods to observe the wildlife this week, do so.
You will both be wealthier and healthier from the experience, and who knows maybe they will take a similar path someday."
Ned Bruha
Recently, Ned Bruha served the U.S. overseas via a requested Army deployment, and is currently V.P. of The Skunk Whisperer®, Inc. in Tulsa where he continues to promote his humane wildlife control practices.
Photos - Top to bottom, left to right:
1 - A very young Ned Bruha posing with his good friends, the chickens;
2 - Ned as a young boy in the cemetery behind his house where first learned to appreciate
wildlife and humanely exclude chipmunks from graves;
3 - A pesky chipmunk like those who inspired him as a young boy;
4 - Ned Bruha today as he strikes an Ace Ventura like pose;
5 - Ned visiting an orphanage during his military service in Afghanistan;
6 - Ned Bruha, The Skunk Whisperer, investigating an urban Canada Goose issue;
7 - Ned in front of the Hindu Kush Mountains in Afghanistan where he served as part of a
embedded training team assigned to help train President Karsais Palace Guards and the Ministry of Defense Soldiers;
8 - Ned working with an orphaned young opossum during a wildlife control mission;
9 - Ned and his wife, Betsey with Tulsa Mayor Kathy Taylor and the Spirit Bank President
Kell Kelly at the Tulsa Entrepreneurial Spirit Awards ceremony.
More About The Skunk Whisperer
Ned Bruha has been and is still featured often in television stories, newspapers and other reporting media.
We've gathered together interesting news and media excerpts for you so you can learn more about
Ned, including information on professional certifications and the prestigious Tulsa Spirit Entrepreneurial Award.
Wildlife Professional Credentials -
Comments From Others -
Join The Humane Team -
Contact Ned
Deserving 501(C)(3) Non-Profit Organizations
The Skunk Whisperer believes in making the world a better place by actively supporting organizations
that help people, veterans and animals. Some of those we have personally chosen to support include:
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