Anyone who takes on the porcupine in a tussle loses, from bears to berry bushes everyone comes up a loser, except one; the fisher (no it is not a man with tackle box). A fisher is a fairly large weasel who is able to attack the nose and face of the porcupine and inflict fatal damage. If a porcupine ever finds himself needing to defend himself, he will remain still and turn his back and tail toward the danger the enemy poses. He will raise up his bristles and his quill studded tail to protect himself and his tender belly and underside with up to 30,000 barbed quills. Now that is a lot of pain; poor puppy...(i'll bet you never do that again). One morning my dad and I were bird hunting near Sugar Bush Hill in Forest County and came across a porcupine, and he did exactly what I described; we ran up to him and the quills began to spread and raise. My dad then touched his tail and back with the gun barrel and you could really see how the blanket of quills on his back would rise and fall in each area that the gun barrel touched as he was trying to defend himself. Truly a wonder of creation.
This photo was taken in Forest County just west of Crandon. This porcupine was foraging for food in the fall and did not seem to be alarmed or threatened by me taking his picture. Porcupines like most other rodents are vegetarian so they eat bark, bushes, needles and buds They are sloppy eaters so if you are ever walking in the woods and see chips and shavings under a tree it could be that a porcupine was upstairs having lunch.
With winter upon us the places that they live in are easy to find. Porcupines live in small caves and hollow trees and logs, they always travel the same trail, so there will be a path in the snow, and the scat will smell like concentrated urine.
Happy Thanksgiving! I am thankful for porcupines, and the fact that I have I have never had a face full of quills.
Yes, that is something to be thankful for!
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