flying porcipines

[snowman]

I have some beautiful young ponderosa pines that have a strange problem.The are avg 6"DBH, 30' tall vigorous healthy trees. Up near the tops of many of them they are girdled and dripping sap. I assume they will die there and grow 2 tops. It looks like porcipine damage you usually see at the base of trees. I can't imagine them climbing to a 3" top and girdling them there.And Im positive they cant fly! Some sharp forester out their got an answer for me?

[bitternut]

Snowman they don't fly up there they climb up at night and chew the young tender stuff all night long while you are sleeping. I have tracked them many times in the snow from a hollow beech den tree to a nice nearby sugar maple. If you go there in the daytime all you see is the tracks from the den to their lunch tree. Porky is nowhere to be seen. Put a conibear trap in the den entrance and you will find him the next morning. Sometimes you will find them perched in the tree top during mild weather but they are mainly night feeders and prefer the new growth which of course is at the top of the tree.

[333_okh]

In bad years where the winter is specially cold or long, we also have squirrel damage the same as you talk about in our redwood, which are very sweet in cambium.  You may also have that problem.

I do agree however that the porky will climb as high as the brnach will let him and 3 inches in diameter is no problem.

[Ron Scott]

Ditto to what Bitternut said. You have some local porcupines that you need to take care of, especially if you are noticing a lot of "fresh girdling" to the top stem. That's favorite winter feeding that will continue tree damage and lose if left unattended.

Also note if you have a large squirrel population. Check for signs of each to determine the culprit.

[stumpy]

We have 40 acres of mature pine in Northern Wisconsin and you can frequently see porky damage.  I've shot 3 or 4 out of the tops of trees.

[SwampDonkey]

I have tracked them many times in the snow from a hollow beech den tree to a nice nearby sugar maple. If you go there in the daytime all you see is the tracks from the den to their lunch tree. Porky is nowhere to be seen.

Yup, one got one of my back yard maples, and I followed his beat down path to an old junk car about 150 feet away. He had all the fine limbs chewed up in the top of the crown. I searched around the old car and never found him. Figured he left for the woods. I'm a long way from the woods, don't know what possessed him to walk across a 100 acre field from the woods.  I found one in a maple-yellow birch grove and it nested inside a hollow yellow birch. He had hauled in some leaves and straw from the nearby field. When I seen what he was doing to the yellow birch around there, his little abode went up in flames.  They'll get into tamarack and white spruce stands bad to, all it takes in an abandoned shack, barn, shed or playhouse near by to live in. We had an mess of them here at one time around old buildings. They would chew the bark off the old apple trees in orchard.

[Texas Ranger]

Flying porcupines, huh?  During Rita, we had lots of stuff flying, amazing what can get air borne when the weather is right.

[Tom]

what does porcupine taste like?

[Kevin]

Bald Eagle. 

[thecfarm]

Tom,I'll send one down to you and you can tell us.

[Tom]

I got to see one waddling across the hiway in the UP.  I was on the road not far from Jeff's cabin.  Supper went through my mind but he got away before we could get stopped.   I figure they are a buffet deli on foot.  You could cube him up, put a cube on a quill and fry that rascal up.  Then dip it in cheese and munch on him with some red wine on the side in a big jelly glass.

There's a name for food preparation like that but I can't remember what it is.  There is a Yuppie restaurant in Orange Park, down the road, that gets big dollars to let you cook your own stuff at the table.  They do special stuff too, like, letting you dip strawberries in hot melted chocolate.  The women like that kind of thing.

Maybe  Detour would too.   I saw some empty store fronts there last year.

I could name it the  Porky Palace. 


Fondue, that's what you call it, Fondue.  If you like Fondue you're supposed to be sophisticated. 

[thecfarm]

Let me know the name of your restaurant when you open it Tom.I want to make sure I don't stop in for a bite to eat.     There are better things to eat than a Hedge hog as my Father called them.I might have the dog trained not to touch them.As long as I can get to him before it's to late.If I'm running something that has a motor on it,I don't make it in time.I left my FIL sitting in the lawn chair one day.The dog was barking steady and wasn't moving.He had one under some old building.One less one to chew on the trees.

[SwampDonkey]

I'm willing to wager, that you'll only eat one. That's if you get past the nasty quills and those oversized bucked teeth. They've gotta be the toughest rodent I've ever seen. 

[Furby]

Maybe we can have some "porky" with the piggy at the roast this year.

[bitternut]

I'll be on the look-out for some the next couple of days while I'm cutting wood. If I run across any I will throw them in the freezer for you Furby.

[Furby]

Wasn't offering, but sorta requesting.
I'd try some that was prepared well.
May not ever try it again, but I'd try some.

[snowman]

OK, thanks for the help. I've never really noticed porcipine damage in tree tops before, only around the base of trees. The things look so slow and clumsy I couldn't imagine them climbing way up there.  I  may be looking for porcipine recipes in my next post.

[SwampDonkey]

They are slow but ferocious.   

[Jeff]

Remember we all got to try gator at the last pig roast thanks to Woodbowl.  It weren't half bad tasting but the texure was a bit odd.

[Sprucegum]

Them little Porkys were real nuisance around around the old outhouses , they liked to chew the seats out of them! Now the campgrounds all have cement floors and plastic bowls so poor Porky has gone back to the trees 

I have heard they are tasty as any varmint out there.