WATCH: Video of UA officer helping, fleeing from skunk draws thousands of views

A video of a University of Arkansas police officer helping — and then furiously fleeing from — a skunk that got its head stuck in a plastic cup has drawn tens of thousands of views online.

The agency posted the video on its Facebook page Wednesday, and it had been viewed more than 73,000 times by early Thursday afternoon.

Cpl. Gabriel Golden, the officer seen in the video snatching the cup off the skunk, said it was actually filmed about a year-and-a-half ago. Police shared it this week after coming across the old file and were surprised by the warm response.

"It's gone a whole further than I thought it would," he said with a laugh.

The video starts with the skunk walking in circles along a grassy area with the cup over its face.

"I guess if I was a brave guy, I'd just reach down there and grab it and run, but I don't think I can outrun Pepé Le Pew," another officer is heard saying.

In the next frame, two officers including Golden are shown near the skunk on a road attempting just that. Golden reaches down and grabs the cup off the skunk and then both officers dart away, trying to avoid the creature's stinky defense mechanism.

Only one was successful.

"Oddly enough, the officer that grabbed the cup was not sprayed, but the other officer (in the gray uniform) DID get sprayed," the campus police agency wrote on Facebook. "He needed a new uniform after this!"

Golden said he enjoyed looking back on the footage and sharing it with others.

"Even though nobody really loves skunks, it's still a life and it needed some help," he said. "So we wanted to help."

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