Prickly Porky

Porcupine

Photo credit: Dianne Krewald

by Val Cunningham

This photo of a porcupine came with a message from photographer Dianne Krewald noting that the mammal couldn’t put weight on one of its paws. That struck a bell, so I did some reading about these members of the rodent family. I’d remembered correctly: due to the odd, hand-over-hand way they climb trees and then perch on thin branches, many porcupines suffer bone-breaking falls.

Studies of porcupine carcasses find up to a third of them with a healed break in a leg or paw. And that leads to another fascinating fact relating to their main line of defense. Porcupines are unique in being covered with up to 30,000 of the stiff hairs we call quills. If threatened by a coyote, dog or other predator, the porcupine swats the animal with its tail (no, it doesn’t shoot its quills), embedding long, painful darts in mouth and jaw.

But since they’re so prone to falls, porkies need to protect themselves from punctures. So quills are covered by a mild antibiotic, providing some protection from infection when a porcupine’s tumble drives its own quills in deep. Some say that the antibiotic provides an element of protection to animals that attack porcupines, as well. However, quills may interfere with canines’ ability to feed and they may die of malnutrition. The one animal that is proficient at evading those quills is the fisher, adept at attacking a porky’s unprotected face or stomach.

Cousins of the beaver, porcupines feast on trees, chewing up both bark and the tasty inner layer, which can lead to a tree’s death. A forest only suffers, though, if there’s an overpopulation of porcupines in an area.

Porcupines have poor eyesight, but very good hearing. They’re said to be quite intelligent and geniuses at negotiating mazes. Porkies are fiends for salt, a mineral lacking in their normal diet. They’ll seek out canoe paddles, ax handles, clothing and gloves with dried sweat in them, chewing these up for their salt value. More than a few porcupines lapping up road salt suffer collisions with cars. Porkies are active all winter and are solitary animals, except when extreme cold may lead several to den up together at night.

St. Paul, Minnesota resident Val Cunningham, leads bird hikes for the St. Paul Audubon Society and writes about nature for local, regional and national newspapers and magazines.