Tracking a Porcupine in Winter
More Articles Related to BlogThis morning (February 29th) there were several inches of fresh snow on top of the four feet already there. I’ve heard tell that in areas South there is already talk of spring, but at -15° F (-9° C) winters icy grip will continue in the rugged mountains of northern New Hampshire for another couple of months.
While out snowshoeing I came upon the fresh tracks in the snow of a porcupine leaving a spruce tree it had spent the night in during the snowstorm. Having come down the tree, the porcupine tracks lead toward the rock ledges of a small mountain about one-quarter of a mile away.
One of the main tenets of Survival Topics is that you can learn the most about wilderness survival from the survival experts whose home is the locale you are in. And there are no better wilderness survival experts than the flora and fauna, which have been successful at living there for thousands of years; proof beyond doubt of their survival credentials. Follow their methods and you will go far in your quest to become well versed in the survival arts.
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Start of Trail During a nightime winter storm, a porcupine spent the night in a tree The next morning the animal headed for home |
With this in mind, I decided to follow the porcupine tracks to wherever they would lead, perhaps learning a thing or two about this wonderful animal and how it survives in the wilderness. Adventure is how you make it.
About Porcupines
Third Largest Rodent in the World
The North American Porcupine is the third largest rodent in the world. In North America only the beaver is a larger rodent and will be the subject of another Survival Topic.
Typically a porcupine lives between five and seven years in the wild. They will grow to be about yard long (1-meter), plus an eight or nine inch tail (.25-meter), and weigh somewhere between 15 and thirty pounds.
Porcupines are herbivores, eating leaves, twigs, buds, clover. During the winter months the inner bark of trees is a favorite menu item and for this reason at one time there were bounties offered on porcupines in the belief they damaged trees used for lumber.
Porcupines are Intelligent
The porcupine is a solitary, squat heavy set animal that seems slow and dim witted, even sloth-like, though this is because its primary mode of defense is so efficient it does not have to be quick acting. In actuality porcupines are intelligent animals that serve their role in the making of wilderness places.
Studies show that porcupines will learn how to navigate complex mazes more quickly than almost any other animal. And for good reason; the forests they live in can be thought of as a very complex maze through which they must thread their way on a daily basis. Being low to the ground as they waddle through often dense underbrush, it is through this maze solving ability that they can most efficiently harvest the barks, buds, and twigs they crave as food – and get back to their dens.
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Following Porcupine Tracks Following the porcupine tracks through a recently logged over area. Half a foot of fresh snow on top of the four feet already there made for excellent snowshoing. The small mountain where the porcupine lives is in the distance. |
The Latin name for porcupines is Erethizon dorsatum which means “The animal with an irritating back”. Aptly applied to an animals covered with up to thirty-thousand barbed quills; the porcupine is a sort of walking spiny urchin of self defense. These defensive quills are what set the porcupine apart from most other animals in the forest and allow the animal to be quite fearless of predators.
I have often come upon porcupines as they waddled along, ignoring my presence even when I came into close proximity. All a porcupine wants is to be left alone.
If you approach within several yards of a porcupine it will often mearly stop and turn to look at you as though it is annoyed. Come closer and it will set itself low to the ground to protect its soft underbelly while maneuvering its back and quill-covered eight or ten inch tail in your general direction. With its quills raised into a spiny mass, you would do well to avoid coming in contact this animal.
Porcupines and Salt
Porcupines crave salt and so will gnaw on anything that salty human hands have touched. In porcupine country you would do well to ensure your equipment is well protected, or you may awake in the morning to find a hole in your canoe or backpack, or your wooden axe handle somewhat thinner than when you last used it!
I once startled a porcupine that was gnawing on a wooden outhouse door for the salt it contained from years of use. As the animal rushed past me to escape, it brushed against my canvas footwear, embedding several quills.
About Porcupine Quills
Porcupines do not throw their quills, as some people claim. This error may have arisen due to the ease with which the quills become detached from their bodies when alarmed. However quilling requires actual physical contact in order to occur.
Porcupine quills are actually large hairs that are solid at both ends and hollow in the middle, with a barb at the end. They normally carry their quills flat against their bodies, and raise them when threatened. When attacked, the porcupine’s quills stick into the attacker upon contact and easily release from the porcupines body. The barbs make these quills very difficult to remove.
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Porcupine Tracks in Snow A closeup of porcupine tracks plowing through deep snow. Note the winding pattern within the furrow made by the waddling, sloth-like gate of the animal. |
Often quills embedded in an animals flesh will work their way into the body as the animal moves, eventually passing through to the opposite side and falling to the ground. Incredibly, as long as the quills do not intersect vital organs the animal usually survives.
How can this be? Porcupine quills have an interesting secret:
Porcupines quite frequently impale themselves on their own quills by accident. This can happen when they slip while climbing trees, which they often do, and sometimes even falling to the ground. To protect themselves against infection, porcupine quills are coated with an antibiotic and have no poison or other irritants.
Because predators quilled by porcupines are also protected by the antibiotics in the quills, quill wounds rarely become infected and the animals nearly always survive. Often run-in with a porcupine is enough and the predator learns to leave them alone. This serves the porcupine well, since if the predators wounds lead to infection and death the porcupine would have to “train” new predators that would move into the area.
Following Porcupine Tracks
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Porcupine Bark Every so often the porcupine climbed a tree for a quick snack of inner bark. Shown here is the base of a yellow birch tree with a section of bark gnawed away. Dislodged debris speckles the surface of the fresh snow, evidence that the porcupine climbed higher up into the tree. |
Now that we know a little more about the life of the porcupine, we can follow its tracks and write the story of one day in a porcupine’s life.
After spending the night in a tree during a snow storm, the porcupine decided to head for home. One of the favorite homesteads of the porcupine is among the jumble of rocks often found at the base of cliffs. The interstices between the rocks and boulders form a maze of natural caves, often many feet deep, that serve as a great hideout.
These porcupine tracks were headed toward the cliffs of a small mountain about a quarter mile away that had just such a feature. As the porcupine waddled through the deep snow, it left behind a furrow containing an interesting sinuous feature that can easily be seen in one of the pictures.
On several occassions fresh coyote tracks crossed those of the porcupine, but it seems the coyote took little interest; perhaps this pack of coyotes have first hand experience when dealing with porcupines and know to look elsewhere for a meal.
Every so often along its way, the porcupine would climb a tree and have a small snack of bark and winter buds. It was easy to see which trees it had climbed, as bits of bark, tree lichen, and other detritus from these trees fell on top of the fresh white snow as the porky climbed up and down. In this case the porcupine climbed two spruces, a balsam fir, and a yellow birch.
In one photo you can see where the base of a yellow birch had been gnawed. He also climbed the tree and removed a section of bark from a young limb before heading back to his journey home.
Interestingly, the porcupine gnawings I have seen rarely strip much of the tree of bark. Rather, the animal removes small areas often not more than the size of a human hand in total area.
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Porcupine Den The porcupine den among the boulders beneath a cliff. Porcupines often utilize piles of boulders as ready made shelters. |
Winding its way though a recently logged over area and then into thick forest at the base of the mountain, the trail eventually lead to the porcupine den, among the boulders as I had predicted. Inside were many generations of scat, partially preserved by the dry conditions in these rock caves.
Survival Uses of Porcupines
As with all wildlife, you are best served by observing and leaving be. As the saying goes:
A man is rich in proportion
To the number of things he can afford to leave be.
Enjoy your encounters with porcupines and respect them as part of the wilderness you have come to know.
That said, should you find yourself in a wilderness survival situation of long duration, the porcupine could be a source of easy survival food. Because they are so slow moving on the ground or in trees and are easy to approach, porcupines can be an easy to acquire source of high protein food.
In addition to use as food, the antibiotic properties of porcupine quills could be of real use to the injured survivor. Though I have not heard of their use in this manner,
northern Wisconsin
I have an albino porcupine in my area that likes to eat cabbage and cauliflower.
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Canada
I was told that you could eat Porcupine raw, once you have it skinned of course. Is this at all accurate?
SurvivalTopics - a good rule to follow is never to eat any meat raw. There is always the chance of disease and parasites. Cooking meat well will eliminate this threat to your health.