black porcupine

Okanagan · December 10, 2009, 07:26:58 PM

Most in our country have more blond and brown. This is the second really black black porcupine I've seen in my whole life. I think the other one didn't have the blond eyebrows. How common are black ones?

I missed some better photo opps on him and was setting up for some close-up shots when he ducked into a culvert I didn't know about!

I'd been watching and taking pics of a coyote 350 yards out in a field when I noticed the nearby porkie, so went back to looking at the coyote, examining porcupine tracks, etc. When I got in my rig to drive on, I spotted the porkie 150 yards up the hill waddling away through sparse sage. I could have photographed him close up as he left the other end of the culvert! It never occurred to me that he would come out the other end with me so close.

FinsnFur · December 10, 2009, 07:29:26 PM

That is so cool. Porcupine is one critter I've never seen in real life.

HaMeR · December 10, 2009, 07:31:45 PM

Cool pics!!

Hawks Feather · December 10, 2009, 11:01:16 PM

Neat pictures. I have heard that they are really tame with people and they let you pet them.

Jerry

pitw · December 10, 2009, 11:10:18 PM

Quote from: Hawks Feather on December 10, 2009, 11:01:16 PM
Neat pictures. I have heard that they are really tame with people and they let you pet them.

Jerry

This would be a fact actually Jerry. I have pet porcupines on more than one occasion[got 23 quills for my trouble once to

]. We have these critters almost as thick as our coyotes. I've played with the slow moving units forever. When they are small[size of a tea cup] they are usually jet black. I have seen solid black large ones as well but more often they have the blondish tinge on them.

slagmaker · December 11, 2009, 07:57:06 AM

Only porcupine I have ever seen was behind a fence at the zoo.

Being able to get that close to one in the wild is wild.

I know when I was taking outdoor survival classes they told us if ya can find a porcupine then you got a meal. He compared it to a slow moving butterball.

No I havnt eaten one. but I have a bunch of there quills. Makes a good light touch bobber.

Okanagan · December 11, 2009, 01:12:51 PM

Quote from: slagmaker on December 11, 2009, 07:57:06 AM

I know when I was taking outdoor survival classes they told us if ya can find a porcupine then you got a meal. He compared it to a slow moving butterball.

No I havnt eaten one. but I have a bunch of there quills. Makes a good light touch bobber.

I've eaten them when I was growing up. Really fat, pretty good taste as I recall. The hide is downright weird. It won't stand hardly any pulling on it when skinning, so soft that it tears.

Quill bobbers? North American porcupines have quills so small that if you are using them you must be using minuscule line and hooks. A BIG one might go 4 inches long and 1/8 diameter but most will be under two inches long and under 1/16 diameter. Australian and Pakistani porcupines have humongous quills in comparison. I have some of those 8 or nine inches long and a quarter inch diameter. We ruined a brand new tire in Australia when we ran over a porcupine. The tire was punctured in many places by the long very hard quills. I've never heard of a North American porcupine quill damaging a tire and in some areas we see them run over on the highway quite a bit.

I think the European porkies (hedgehogs?) have big quills also, not sure.

Native North Americans use local quills as decoration similar to beading. They sew them on whole in geometric patterns or cut a segment off of the white hollow portion of the quill and sew it on like a bead of any other material. About 2/3 of each quill is a hollow white tube similar to a plastic straw. The hollow white end is attached to the skin like hair. The outer third of the quill is brittle hard black and tapers to a needle sharp tip, with almost microscopic barbs covering the black portion.

The barbs point back from the tip, causing the quill to work its way deeper once it enters flesh. When the tip enters skin and blood softens it, the barbs swell up making it tear flesh to remove them. The sooner a quill comes out the better. Also, I have been told that pinching the hollow white portion to grip it and pull causes the quills to extend.

Sorry. I'm a hopeless bore on topics that interest me, and they are often offbeat obscure outdoor trivia (of no interest unless you are pulling quills out of a hound!)

pitw · December 11, 2009, 01:26:08 PM

Well this one doesn't bore me.

I have had quills make a tire leak on my truck but only once. If you want to pull quills with less problems make a paste out of H20 and baking soda, it softens them up considerable and makes for easier and less painful pulling. There is a market for quills and the guard hairs too. I think the reason they got named porcupine is they are flavored much like pork and you are right about their soft skin.

slagmaker · December 11, 2009, 06:15:24 PM

I use them ice fishing. Need it small and very little resistance when a fish goes for the bait. We used them for bead work in Scouts as well. Never liked quill work. It was easy I just never liked doing it. My cousins girlfriend has huge bags of the quills dyed all diffrent colors. But she is into buckskining and does a lot of bead work and stuff at rendevues

5 SHOTS · December 12, 2009, 08:06:03 PM

I have been told to snip a little bit of the end off the white end of the quill and then remove it. snipping the end off is supposed to release the pressure in the quill and the barbs retract.

alscalls · December 12, 2009, 08:48:33 PM

Cool pics!!