Porcupine Territory

[Ker_man]

Who does or does not have the porkys in their area?
Seems amazing to those of us that have a lot of them that others don't have any. We could send you some
I have a friend with a brother who is a vet several hours north of here who has never pulled a quill.

[Tom A]

Around here it seems like they went away for awhile, now it seems like they are coming back.
My family ran deer hounds from 1920's till the 70's and they were always pulling quills.
My Grandpa said you couldn't leave your ax outside overnight or the porcupines would chew the handle off to get the salt from your sweat and every year they would replace the wood around the seat in the outhouse because porcupines would eat that up too.

Then the kinda dissapeard about 20 years ago. It was rare to get a dog quilled, now it seems like they are coming back.

I killed 2 just walking down the road and my dogs have been quilled 3 times in about 3 years.

Just last week I had 5 dogs get quilled.

[1bludawg]

Here in Douglas County ,Oregon I haven't seen a porky in about 20 years .While coonhunting ,as a teenager,I can remember seeing as many as 7 in a night .The County put a $1 bounty on the nose of every porcupine brought in.They did this because of the damage they did to trees.I guess it worked because i seldom hear of anyone seeing a porcupine anymore.I don't miss wrestling with the dogs and pulling quills but i kinda miss seeing a ole porky waddling down the road every now and then .I guess the porcupine is another example of what happens when you put a price on the hide of any animal!

[Ker_man]

Thanks for the replies guys. Here the darn things are protected in case some one would eventually get lost and need to eat one. Land owners can kill them if they are doing damage.

[Henefer-hound-hunter]

We have always had a ton of them in northern Utah! So any of you want me to transplant a few in your area I would be happy to, cause I believe everyone should learn why we hate those cute lil bastards! And know the misery that is pulling quills from dogs:) I have had to pull quills from dogs four times in the last two months(IT SUCKS). When we were kids we would shoot ten a day sometimes and it never even seemed to dent the population, we still shoot them every chance we get their destructive little critters.

Cameron

[Emily]

I picked up a book by the world's leading academic expert on North American porcupines, Uldis Roze. http://biology.qc.cuny.edu/people/facul ... ldis-roze/ I was reading it and noticed his location descriptions sounded awfully familiar. Turns out he lives walking distance from me here in the Catskill high peaks in upstate NY. This neighborhood used to be porcupine heaven!

However, since we've had fishers move in, thanks to NY DEC, the porky porcupine population has plummeted. There are times I would rather be pulling quills than trying to catch a dog barking treed and moving as the fishers leap from tree to tree for miles. We're not supposed to shoot fishers, but we are allowed to trap them as long as we get the pelts sealed.

Professor Roze is no hunter, but his books are interesting reads. At one point, when he's still figuring out how to handle quill pigs without getting quilled himself, he describes what it feels like to have a quill migrate through his arm and emerge on the other side. After I introduced myself, I was surprised to discover that he didn't know its illegal to transport and release a quill pig miles from where it was caught (to prevent spread of disease), but I did learn a lot about porcupine life cycle that helped me figure out how to keep my hounds from getting quilled. There's a period in May around here when the kits are small, and the mothers climb trees to eat while leaving the kits at the bottom. I no longer have incidents where the hounds pick up a kit and get quilled inside their mouth. Those are the worst to pull!!

[Unreal_tk]

Old timers say that cats will eat the hell out of em.

[dwalton]

Cougars almost always had porcupine quills in their feet when there were only a few cougar around. As soon as the cougar population peaked out around here you saw very few porcupines. I have had only one dog quilled in the last 20 years. Not a lot of people made their living on $1 dollar bounty on porcupines. Dewey

[Ker_man]

Emily, I've pulled plenty of those little quills, they are bad.
I've seen some bobcats that had a lot of quills in their mouth and throat. Some won't survive it.
If the same dog seems to keep going back for more they need to go somewhere else

[mefishme1234]

got them here in maine.. theres 2 things we have to break out hounds on, porkys and deer.

[heybearwalker]

We don't have too many around here, but if we're close to one, I assure you my dogs will find it. Especially if they haven't caught a bear in a few days they will gladly substitute porky for boo-boo.
I think cats eat a lot of them as well. I have yet to skin a bob from around here that didn't have its front legs full of old quills.

[Plott_Dogs]

has anyone ever had a dog loose an eye to a pocupine ? it seems like it would happen

[sheimer]

has anyone ever had a dog loose an eye to a pocupine ? it seems like it would happen

Funny you ask this...I got a pup last fall and it never crossed my mind to worry about porkys. My older dogs were broke off them a few years back and it just slipped my mind until a couple days ago when all the hound escaped the kennel and went for a stroll. The pup evidently bumped one and sucked the other knot heads into a bay up. The older 2 had a few and the pup was full of them and one quill was in his left eye lid and when I found him it looked like his eye was drained. I pulled the quill out and within a few minutes the eye was nearly back to normal. Took them to the vet and had it checked out and got some antibiotics and now he's good as new. So I guess my answer is no but damn close.

Scott

[akbruce66]

Nebraska Game and Parks say the only food source found in 100% of the lion stomack's they have looked at is porky meat. 10 years ago there were lots here in the Pine Ridge country but game cameras almost stopped picking them up in the last few years, and where I get to hunt deer you just do not see much fresh debarking.
There are isolated groups of pines that still have them, I walked 3 miles to what I thought would be a cat in a tree but 2 of my boneheads had a porky on the ground and plenty of quills in them.Every slash pile pulls my hounds in and makes a walk past them really slow, bunnies and porkies, a rancher that burnt some piles in the snow said there were cat tracks at every one.My hounds found lion kittens in one such pile, close to a feeding station, what a setup for mom. You could see in the snow where she had caught deer, smothered them and draged them to the litter. All the kill sites I have found there is a dish shaped depression in snow with more or less hair and that is it, the deer does not flail or get up, justdown smothered and dead.
I have found the hides from cat kills of porkies, yup the dogs roll in them and get quills also, sort of regifting.

[mondomuttruner]

I really hate to say this but it sounds like more of a dog problem than a porky problem. I don't tolerate a dog that goes off a track for a porky. In all my years, I've pulled a single quill out of the nose of one of my dogs bout 15 yrs ago and that was the first and the last. Knock on wood. We do have plenty of porky's around. From my observations on other packs lead me to believe that it's usually one dog in the pack that gets it started. With gps, it should be fairly easy to pick out the culprit. After picking quills on a weekly basis, I think I would reevaluate how much I really want that dog in my pack. Keep in mind, that one dog will teach the others and you may have that problem for a very long time.
Not trying to be a prick, just be honest with yourself about what you have.

Now that I said that, I'll probably be in the same boat so thanks to myself....