Conference vmsnet::hunting$note:hunting

    
    Jack,
    Porkies can climb real well.  They eat bark off of trees. They love
    apple trees.  Sounds like the one you saw was full grown, although 
    I've seen some that were huge.  They cannot throw there quills. You
    have to come into contact with them.  
    
    Jeff

    Jack,
    
    Also, a member of the Weasel family known as the Fisher is the only
    natural predator a full-grown porcupine has. Fishers have learned how
    to flip the porcupine onto its back and then the fisher can attack the
    soft underbelly. I'll second the previous reply about porcupine's being
    unable to throw their quills. 
    
    Ed

    
    JACK,
    
      Re: .1 and .2....right...they do not throw their quills....when 
      contact is made the barbed quill is released...naturally not 
      intentionally....as we would pull a hair out if it were stuck
      ...
    
    Ron

    Not only do they like tree bark, they positively love plywood.
    I know, they've eaten several tree stands of mine ! Solution
    was to build stands out of pressure-treated lumber ;-) I've
    also heard of them eating the platforms of the old Baker 
    climbing stands. I mostly use an all-aluminum portable these
    days.
    
    Dana 

 It sounds like an almost full grown porcupine. Probably 1-2 years old.

 There are indeed several varieties; I'm not sure how many kinds are found 
around here.

 The quills must come into contact with you to stick. They can't throw them
but sometimes when they flick their tail some loose ones will fall out.

 I hear they love the glue that they use for plywood. :-)

 The Doctah

    Yep, Watched a REAL LARGE BIG FAT one climb one of my apple trees, and
    commence to get'n his lunch;  Until the branch broke from the strain
    of his OVERLY LARGE BIG FAT BUTT...
    
    
    What a sight...Couldn't help but laugh...Was he ever in a tizzy..
    
    Jeff

    I have never tried this but I have been told that a porcupine is the
    only animal a person can eat WITHOUT having to cook it. Something to
    remember if one gets lost. I have had porcupine sausage and it was
    very good, but it was cooked. I have seen many in trees before, most
    that I have seen were in pairs and they sounded like a couple of kids
    screaming their heads off, I presume they were mating pairs.
    							bret

    Jack, I would say you are lucky your dog was just barking and didn't
    try to nudge or bite the porcupine.  I can tell you from experience
    that dealing with a snout full of quills is not a pleasant experience!
    
    Mark,
    

    Re. .7
    I could be wrong, but I think the phrase you heard was that a porcupine
    is the only animal that a person can capture (i.e., outrun and subdue)
    without weapons for use in a survival situation.
    
    Of course, it does come with it's own toothpicks ;^)
    

    re. 9 I was told by a few people that had Indian Origins about eating
    raw porcupine. They said it was perfectly safe to eat that way. But
    like I said I had never tried it, but if it came down to survival I
    would. Plenty of toothpicks to last a year. 
    							bret
    
    
    P.S. Pulling quills from a dog is one the harder things to do in life.     
    Just as hard on the person doing the pulling as it is on the dog.

    
    
    	Woodchucks climb trees too!

    Most of the porcupines I've seen in the woods were snoozing up in a
    tree.  Like a previous noter said, the fisher is the only known
    predator of the porcupine.
    
    Mark.

    My wife keeps telling me that "if a hunter kills a porcupine then
    he/she will have bad luck." Any truth to this wivestale? Have any of you
    fellow hunters ever heard this before? 
    I got one stripping the bark off my trees and I was planning on wasting
    it but I don't need anymore bad luck hunting.
    
    JC

    I've wasted a few during some of my hunting excursions and nothing
    out of the ordinary has happened.  A way that a friend of mine puts
    it is, theres no such thing as bad luck it's just that SH__ HAPPENS.
                                                        
                                     Tony C.
                                            

     Not to jump on the soapbox, but why would you kill a porky when you
    are out hunting?  Seems like one more example for the antis to use 
    when they portray us as cold blooded killers.  It doesn't take Daniel
    Boone to be able to hit one.  Stevie Wonder could probably nail one.
    Seems like a waste.
    
    Jeff  

    Jeff,
    
    I guess it all depends on the circumstances...  Up in VT, on the farm
    where we hunt, they can do substantial damage to the sugar maple crop.
    We've been instructed to shoot any we see, as a good part of his
    income comes from maple syruping.  With the money some of these guys
    have invested in their sugaring operation, it's easy to see why they
    have no compuncture about killing one.  Having the hunters do it, is
    simply a matter of logistics, we can cover more ground in less time
    with less effort than it would take him to police his own property.
    
    You would be surprised at the $$ these people have sunk into their
    sugaring operations...  This is just one reason, i'm sure people have 
    others as well.
    
    I must admit, that while deer hunting, I would be hard pressed to blow
    one away after quietly sitting for an hour or so waiting for a deer to
    wander by.  If I happened to be on safari or coming out of the woods
    I'd probably be more comfortable taking the shot, although deer can
    pop up anywhere at any time.
                                                       
    Fra

    Fra,
    
      I see no problem with your reasons.  I'd do it to if it were a matter
    of livelyhood.  I even shoot chucks out of my garden.   What I don't
    like is shooting porkies just for the helluva it.  I think it protrays 
    hunters as individuals who are interested only in a body count.  I
    guess its a matter of perspective.  It kind of reminds me of going to 
    a WMA and seeing a bunch of dead songbirds that idiots have shot. 
    Doesn't do alot for the image of hunters as sportsman. 
    
    Jeff

    Jeff, I'm with you on this one, although I also agree with Fra in cases
    where porcupines are nuisances.
    
    Regarding the bad luck one would encounter if one killed a porcupine,
    there's some element of truth in this.
    
    A couple of years ago, a friend mine brought a buddy deer hunting with
    us.  While we were hot on the trail of a buck we jumped, my friend's
    buddy shot a porcupine sleeping on a branch.
    
    His bad luck started when I knocked him on his ass.
    
    :^)
    
    Mark.

    Jeff, Mark, I agree whole-heartedly... theres no need for the wanton
    taking of animals for no reason.  I was merely pointing out that under
    some circumstances it is acceptable.  songbirds... thats sickening!
    
    Fra

     Mark,
    
      The guys lucky you let him off so easy.  That would definitely be
    enough to frost me.  It's like when your goose hunting and your working 
    a bunch of birds and some idiot who is set up even _further_ from them
    then you are decides to skybust them.  Grrrrrr  One advantage of having
    a game warden as a hunting partner.
    
    Jeff

    
    This does pertain, but not totally as Fra pointed out, when I was a 
    youngster, probably 10 or so...I remember shooting swallows off the
    power lines with my BB gun.  Seemed like the thing to do at the time.
    Well here comes my Uncle Bill...he's about 250 lbs. and strong as an
    ox, but usually very gentle.  He grabs me by the arm, picks up a dead
    bird and brings me over to his camp, makes me clean it and prepares to
    cook it for me...he made his point very clear as there was no way I was
    eating that thing.  His point still reminds me of how we should respect
    wildlife, all forms, from a beautiful drake Woodie to a porcupine.  
    There's a time to kill whether it be for food or for pelt, but wanton
    waste is disgusting.
    
    By the way a friend shot a porky while grouse hunting once, we cleaned
    it and fried up the leg meat, tasted like roast pork, but greasier.
    Very tastey!!!  About quills, they can be very poisonous, no it's not
    any venom or anything, but porkies are disgusting little things that 
    like to roll in their own by products...you have to be very careful if
    you get pricked.
    
    Anyway that's my view...
    
    later,
    
    Kevin

    Well, I'm sorry I got a few people angry, but I never did say I
    shot them for the hell-of-it.  I have a friend that eats the pricky
    critters that I shoot.  He says they're not bad eaten, but I think
     I might stay away from it - myself.                           
                    
                                         Tony

    I'm going back a ways, late 70's. But while doing a lot of hiking in
    VT there was an effort to stock Fishers to cut down the Porky
    population. The Fishers attack the face of the porky, they are long and
    sleek and keep low while blinding and dazing their prey. Also quick.
    Once the porky is dazed enough the Fisher Cat then flips it to finish
    the kill and eat. They didnt stay in the area though and the porky
    population never suffered.
    
    On one of my hiking trips along the Long Trail, we were at a newly
    constructed shelter. The shelter was 3 sided and made from newly fallen 
    trees, striped of their bark. Once things quieted, they came out of
    nowhere. About 8 of them, they just started chewing on the new shelter.
    At first it was nice to see nature at work, but we could not get rid of
    them. We had to take shifts sleeping to keep them away to prevent an
    accidental quill. I beleive the porkys have to chew to keep their teeth 
    short (not sure about this). These guys were not afraid of anything, we
    banged our pots and poked them with our walking sticks to try and fight
    them off. What a night.
    
    On another trip in VT, I was having lunch on the summit of Burnt Rock.
    A young lady with a golden lab arrived and joined us. Her dog left the
    area for 2 min. and was back with a face full. The girl says "not
    again!", dumb dog... We cut the quills to make them collapse and then
    pulled them out. We could only pull the ones on its legs and chest, the
    dog would not let us do a thing with the ones in its mouth and face.
    She had to leave and take him to a vet. Not something you want to happen
    to you. 
    
    Don

    
    	RE: -.1
    	
    	> they didnt stay in the area 
    	Don,
    		I always thought We had a healthy population of fisher 
    Cats in Vermont with trapping seasons etc.  I'm surprised to hear this.
    Where did you learn of this - I'm curious?  - Rob
    

    OOPS!   
    
    My info came from a warden we met along the trail. The info is very old
    and most likely very out dated. I didnt mean to imply there were no
    Fishers in VT. Just that the stocking effort back then was not that
    successful. Or so I was told, and from my experience and from talking
    to other hikers Porkys were all over the place. Do you know what the 
    current status of porcupines is in VT? Is it moderate or is there an
    over abundance?
    
    Your knowledge of the Cats population is much more up to date than my
    recollection of the years gone by.
    
    Don

    I remember waking up one morning in Northern Ontario Canada to this god
    awful noise.
    
    Break out of the tent to see this grown man, our hunting partner, out
    in his long johns poking madly under his brand new Ford pickup and
    saying words only heard in a hunting camp.
    
    Seems porky thought the new hoses on his truck tasted good and was
    going to eat all he could. Man what a sight, still good for a laugh
    or two.

re: .23, Don

> We cut the quills to make them collapse and then pulled them out.

???. They are hollow like a feather quill, then? Full of? Air?

-Jack

    re. .27
    
    Yes they are hollow, but this was the young lady's idea. She was the
    one with the experience in pulling quills. They are barbed though and
    do not come out easily. We had to use a pair of small pliers to pull
    them out. Another hiker that happened to come by while we were cutting
    the quills had the pliers. I remember thinking that was a strange item
    to carry while hiking, but I guess he was right...
    
    Don

	No personal experience but supposedly when you swueeze the tail end 
	of a quill the pointed end expands somewhat making it more difficult 
	(and harder on the skin) to pull out.  A cut quill keeps it from 
	expanding.

	AA

    Well, my experience with porcupines is that one keeps coming around
    my house to chew on the T1-11 siding. He hadn't been around for awhile
    and I figured my rock throwing scared him away for good. Well, I was
    at my friends house (summer resident)across the street from me, and my 
    friend says,"take a look at the siding on the side of my deck." The 
    porcupine has been going to house instead of mine. Chewed a 10" hole into 
    the T1-11 siding right to the back.

    My old Springer came into a porcupine while  I was out hunting with
    her behind my house. She got about 6 quills in her face. The thing to do,
    is pull them out as soon as you can. The quills aren't really barbed, but
    they splinter as they dry out and then can break inside when you pull
    them out. When I pulled them out, they came out smooth and clean, and
    it didn't hurt the dog at all.

    Here's an interesting story. Two years ago, an attack dog escaped from
    the Gardner State prison into the High Ridge Wildlife management area.
    The dog was dangerous and would attack other animals on site. Well
    after a week went by, they found the dog sitting on a dead deer, with
    a face full of porcupine quills. Can you imagine that dog, when it seen
    the porcupine and just went tearing into it ? Ouch!
    They had to put the dog down, BTW.


    Jim

    Our neighbors at our vacation home on Lake Winni had a beautiful maile
    golden retriever.  In early August they put him out late at night and
    there was a porcupine right behind the house.  The dog jumped on it.
    They got a vet up & he removed some 200+ quills from his face and
    chest, some of them broke off and he couldn't remove them.  About
    a week later the dog went back to the vet to surgically remove a
    few of the embedded quills that were infected around some
    joints/nerves, but couldn't remove them all.  Labor day they rushed the 
    dog back to the vet, but it was too late.  The dog died from some 20 or
    so quills that had worked their way into the chest cavity (heart & lungs).
    
    What a sad note for them to end the summer on.  I am now being EXTRA
    careful about where my lab goes around there.
    
    Mark,