Why do skunks use stink as a defence?

Answer 1

Its actuelly a very good defense. Most predatory animals use their sense of smell as a primary means of tracking prey. So thus their sense of smell is very senstive, so the Skunk's powerful stench is very effective. Most of them have a much more powerful sense of smell than us, so as bad as Skunk smell is to us, to one of them its much worse, and most wild animals don't have the ability to remove it so they're stuck with it for the duration. So thus, once its been skunked and suffered, most predators will learn mess with a skunk and you end up stinking to high heavens and leave skunks alone. Dogs have trouble with learning that but most predators learn and avoid skunks. Also, smell is heavily connected to memory, so many animals remember the skunk's smelly defense well. So that's why they use their terrible stench as a defence, it works well with most predators, except Great Horned Owls, which have almost zero sense of smell, so it doesn't have much effect.