Little that can be said good
about porcupines. A long time ago, when
I lived in New Hampshire, they were thought so ill of up in that country that
there was still a bounty on them. I
think the state paid only fifty cents, which isn’t a lot, but that fact that
someone paid to have them killed tells you something.
Foresters hate the critters
because they eat the bark off of trees, often girdling the tree and hence
killing it. During the time that I
worked as a logger, we always were careful not to leave the hose from the fuel
tank hanging down too low or the porcupines would chew on it to get the salts
our hands left behind. There were
stories about them chewing through tires and almost anything made of wood that
human hands had touched.
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| Photo by Mark Laken |
One time a friend named Don
Pouliot and I hiked up to Stub Hill Pond to fish. We left very early in the morning and then
walked hard to get there before the sun climbed very high into the sky. To this day I vividly remember how my lungs
felt like there were going to burst on that hurried hike. A friend of Don’s had offered us the use of
his boat, a small pram that he towed up there during the winter time behind a
snowmobile. When we reached the pond we found the pram upside down over two
poles, which were tied between two stout fir trees, with the oars tucked neatly
inside. But one of the oars had been
chewed enough by a porcupine to make it useless. We rowed in circles that day and caught
nothing.
My first bird dog, a Brittany
spaniel named Zac, had a pronounced stubborn streak. Twice he pointed porcupines, and let me tell
you, porcupines hold really well for a point.
After a while though, when nothing happened, he swatted the critters
with his paw, resulting in dozens of quills right through the foot. On both of those occasions I had the help of
friends to deal with the problem, and mostly they sat on the dog while I yanked
the quills through.
One fall though, in a thick
stand of alders where lush foliage cloaked the ground, Zac locked up on a rock
solid point. I assumed the dog pointed a
bird, because it certainly looked like the right sort of place for a woodcock, so I walked with
my gun ready and eyes ahead, expecting a woodcock to tweeter into the sky. But instead of a bird flushing, my dog pounced
on a porcupine and tried to bite it.
What a mess. Quills were sticking
out of everywhere. Many went right up
through from inside his mouth and out the top of his nose.
I took the dog to the vet that
time and the dog was sedated before the quills were removed. Months later, when I was scratching Zac’s
nose, I felt a quill working its way up out of his nozzle. Pliers yanked the thing out.
Back in those days, large
trunks of dead yellow birch could be found in the woods. I don’t recall seeing any during the last few
years, but back then we called these things stubs. Most stood maybe twenty or thirty feet tall,
and two men together might put their arms around them, and all had lost their
tops. These enormous trunks were nearly
always hollow, like a big chimney, with their red heartwood having rotted
away. Quite often there would be a hole
at the bottom somewhere and almost always it would be piled high with porcupine
poop, sometimes several feet deep, and a person could see where the dreadful
rodent had tread over their own droppings as they came and went. At times the ammonia smell of urine alerted
me to these porcupine dens long before I saw them, and looking at the filthy
mess you really didn’t want your dog to get quilled by an animal that disgustingly dirty.
About three years ago, while
bird hunting, I found a stand of sugar maples where almost every tree for a
hundred yards in every direction was chewed.
Not many were girdled, but some were, and many were badly wounded. Two years ago my oldest GWP pointed a
porcupine. Walking up to the dog, I was
able to heel her away unharmed. Last
fall my two wirehairs pointed side by side, while the porcupine tried to hide
under a pile of bulldozed-up stumps.
Again, I heeled them both away.
One time I found a dead
porcupine, turned almost completely inside out with most of the meat gone. That puzzled me, but an old-time woodsman
explained to me how a fisher cat could flip one over and kill it without
getting quilled, and then eat the thing through the unprotected stomach. Fishers must be fast, or very very hungry to
try that.
Sitting on a knoll against a
stump and waiting for deer one November, I heard something shuffling through
the leaves. Rising up slightly I could
see it was a porcupine just off the crest of a rise. Figuring that I would scare every deer for
miles if I shot the thing, I let it pass.
It went about two hundred feet and then climbed the only hemlock in the
stand of hardwoods where I sat. I
remember the claws making quite a racket on the way up the rough-barked tree.
When the animal got up among
the limbs it started screaming and snarling loudly. At that point my curiosity got me up on my
feet and I figured every deer within a mile could hear the ruckus anyway. About twenty-five feet up two large
porcupines we looking down at me, obviously more afraid of me than they were
angry at each other. Was it two males
fighting for territory? Or was it their
version of a marital disagreement? Or
two grown siblings quarreling over something?
I will never know, but I do
know that a .35 Remington makes a very effective porcupine cartridge, just make
sure you know where they are going to fall.
The faces and front legs of both critters were filled with quills,
obviously from fighting the other. I
can’t imagine how they would have ever removed the things.
The last time I saw a porcupine
dead in the road it was on the Route 495 belt west of Boston. And the one before that was on Route 9 out
near Belchertown, MA. It seems their
range is expanding back into country where they haven’t been seen in
years.
Taking a cue from the people
who train hunting dogs to ignore rattle snakes, a friend of mine shot a
porcupine and when his dog showed interest in the animal he zapped the dog an
e-collar at its highest setting. I don’t
think the dog has been quilled since then, but I don’t know how many porcupines
it has encountered either.
If you hunt with dogs in
porcupine country you should have needle nose pliers or forceps handy, as well
as scissors or snips of some kind.
Immobilizing the dog is usually the hardest part of the task, so you may
want to give it some thought ahead of time.
A big stick across the back of the mouth will hold the jaw open, and a
large coat or blanket wrapped around the dog may keep it still. The quills do come out easier if you snip
them to let the air out, which makes them a little less rigid, and quills that
pass through tissue are more easily removed by pulling them through. Remember, there is a hook on the end that
went in first and it wants to catch and tear on the way back out. Liberal amounts of peroxide or some other
disinfectant is good to wash the wounds out with. It is always best to see a veterinarian, but
often in the best bird country they are hours away.
