Comment by underlipton
17 hours ago
>Does the scent gland do anything more than just stinking?
It's part of their communication system. There's no direct corollary in human qualia, but you might say it's akin to permanently destroying your ability to flirt or tell other people that something belongs to you. You would still experience the impulse, but not have the cognitive equipment to do so any longer. Removing scent glands destroys the physiological equipment, of course.
That's a wildly stretched metaphor. Spraying a threat with a chemical weapon so powerful it will deter a hungry predator is not akin to winking at a cute girl or boy.
And if the scent gland is "part of their communication system", then a loaded 45 is part of a (domesticated, modern) human's.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anal_gland
Skunks use their anal scent glands as a defensive weapon, yes, and it's thought that this is their primary use. However, until recently, it was also thought that skunks didn't scent mark at all. It turns out that they do, through body-rubbing, like cats. It stands to reason then that we might also be wrong about the functions of their anal glands, and that (as with most carnivores) they serve some sort of less-extreme communication function in addition to the last-resort defense. But threat displays are also part of a human's communication system, yes.
In any case, there are differing accounts as to whether removal affects the animal, and also whether it's even necessary to prevent spray incidents.
https://publish.illinois.edu/maxallen/files/2021/04/Jackson-...
https://www.reddit.com/r/Skunks/comments/fyxdsk/hello_i_have...