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. 

[Jim Spencer]

I have shot Porky out of White Pine trees 100' up.
They like the tender bark and that would be very near the top.
They will destroy the tree.  I have shot many of them.
In the Huron National forest near Glennie, Mich.

[Tom]

Are the quills easily removed?  I've seen them used in American Indian dress as ornaments.   Things like breast plates and headdress bands.  They are quite brittle, I've heard.  Are the smooth?

[Ron Scott]

The quills remove from the animal's back quit easily when its "messed with". They are somewhat stiff and not very brittle. The quills are tough on a dog when a dog gets into one. The dog often has to be taken to a Vet to have the quills removed from its face and mouth.

I kicked one once and its quills went through my rubber boot into my ankle. Not a smart move on my part.

[SwampDonkey]

We had one dang dog that got into them 3 times when I was a kid and father had to take the quills out of a snarling dog. There was no vet visits. It was that or a bullet.  This place used to be bad for quill dogs, with all the old outbuildings around.

[thecfarm]

Have to get Tom up here to see one in person.The quills are smooth,but not on the end facing you when they are still attached to a porcipine.There is a barb similar to what you would find on a fish hook.They go in easy but come out hard.The end facing you is real sharp too.They will thump thier tail on the ground to make the quills loosen up so they can hit you with thier tail if you get too close.I had to pull them out of dogs that I have owned.I was told to snip the end off to make them easier to pull out.Well easier on whatever the quills are coming out of.The one I have now is very protective of this place.He's got into 2,so far.The first time he got into one that was born that year.I shoot it after it was too late.Most dogs will get them around the nose,mouth.Most quills are about the size of the lead in a pencil,but are hollow.Some are an inch long some are 3-4 inches long.This young one that he got into had quills like hair on your head.Never seen any like that.I've never seen a small one before.I had to go buy a better pair of needle nose pliers to pull them out,because all the ones I had would not close tight enough to pull them out the ones that were like hair.I got all but 4.These were inside his mouth,around his lip.His lips are black and so are the quills. I could see them but as soon as I would try to get the pliars into his mouth the dog would jump and I would loose sight of it.When they are pulled out the barb hurts.These were the ones like hair.A trip to the vet and $45 later he is happy.He got into one when I was working.I had the wife take him right up to the vet.Same price.Doesn't matter if thier is 4 or 20.I have killed these porcipines almost every way that you could think of.Rocks,wooden clubs,pitch forks,axes,picks,guns and so on.There must be a reason why they exist,but I don't know why.My father had a old Homelite and one of the porky chewed the top handle to get the salt.All they do is destroy trees.Now if he would keep away from them skunks.He's up to 5-6.

[Ernie_Edwards]

.There must be a reason why they exist,but I don't know why.

Actually they are part of the system that helps keep the forests thinned. They will eat the very young trees when they can and keep the new stands thinned. By us everyone kills every porky they see. As a result when the new trees get started in the forests around here the stands are so thick that you can't walk between them. Consequently it is hard for any of them to get established and be the mature trees that someone will enjoy in a hundred years.

This is just info we came across from a University study that was done somewhere in the northeast. Too long ago to remember where, but maybe from Maine. Guess they were put here to be an important part of the forest ecosystem.

[thecfarm]

I don't believe it.Would take 1000's of them to keep just mine woods trimmed down.I would be stepping on the DanG things.

[SwampDonkey]

Actually, snow shoe hair will thin out hardwood and poplar with greater efficiency than porcupines, and they have many more offspring per generation. A porky only has 1 most times, sometimes 2. The hare won't climb and chew bark higher up the tree though.

I remember being in a tent along the Sevogle River and a porky and it's baby was hanging around at night and got brave enough to naw a little on one of my tent poles. I drove it off, and even though they move slow they can disappear some fast in the undergrowth.

[ID4ster]

It's possible that the damage has been caused by porcupines and if so, as others have mentioned, the tracks will show up in the snow. Winter time is a prime time for them to feed on trees though they usually will stay in the tree for a while and girdle or eat a large section of the bark. They can easily climb up and girdle trees at a 3" diameter. The best solution is an application of small amounts of lead applied at high veolocity. Night hunting with a flashlight may be the best time to find them. If the damage is near the leader than it may be a mouse problem. I came across several Grand fir last winter that were girdled by mice for long lengths of their upper stem by mice. You can tell the difference once you look at the size of the teeth marks that are doing the girdling. If this is the case I can't tell you what the solution is other than promoting predators such as coyotes, hawks, owls and weasels in your timber stand. Something else that you may run into and it will show up in trees that size and age is the pine shoot borer. They mine into the leaders and will kill the leaders of the trees that they infect. They don't girdle the trees though and they form a characteristic "shepard's crook" on infected leaders and new growth on lateral stems.

[SwampDonkey]

If the damage is near the leader than it may be a mouse problem. I came across several Grand fir last winter that were girdled by mice for long lengths of their upper stem by mice. You can tell the difference once you look at the size of the teeth marks that are doing the girdling.

You sure it wasn't squirrels? They are bad for that and cutting leaders off. 

[ID4ster]

The leaders weren't cut off. The bark on the entire leader and in some cases quite a ways down the tree was nibbled off and the tree was girdled. The teeth marks were also very small. Smaller than a squirrel and some of the branches that were debarked were too small for a squirrel to be out on. In either case the control would be the same. Encouragement of predators.

[fuzzybear]

now don't every one laugh at me all at once...but we do eat porcies. You have to singe the quills off of them.  They are considered survival food because you can actually eat the meat raw.  I've done it once and it wasn't that bad. Mostly it's thrown in a pot with taters and carrots and such. Good food just boney and greasy....always eat with rolaids

[SwampDonkey]

You've heard of the march of the penguins, well this will be the march of the porkies to fuzzy bear's.     Only when they eat the door and seat off the out house will he thank us for sending them.

                      

[jon12345]

Used to shoot them but now I think I might start a porcupine farm.  The possibilities are endless, I could rent em out to landowners to thin their forests ,  harvest the quills and sell em to the natives, and ship the meat out to anyone willin to try it, sell the babies for pets, dog deterrent system to keep neighbor's dog from crappin in your yard.       Well I'm off to the store to buy some havaharts 

[Tony_T]

Porkys are edible.  In a survival situation they are pretty easy to kill with one good wack with a stout limb across the forehead.

We used to have a lot more around here until the fishers came back.  I found a porky that ran into one last winter, decapitated and eaten out from the belly.  All that was left was the hollow carcass and the skin/quills.

Might have been the same fisher on the picture I've posted on the left here?

[ely]

i shot one with my bow when i lived in colorado years before. i skinned it out and kept the hide forever. never did anything with it and now i forget what happened to it. i do remember trying it roasted over a fire, i am sure it was edible cause we ate it. afterwords someone told me it was against the law to kill them like that because they were considered survival food if people were lost. i do not know if that was true but i never killed anymore of them, i never seen anymore either. we do not have them in okla. that i know of.

[jon12345]

In NY they aren't protected, can be taken anytime  as long as you have a small game license.  I've also heard that in some states they're protected as a survival food, and can be eaten raw.   

I think fishers and man are the only thing that hunts them.  I read the fisher will eat just about anything smaller than a coyote or bobcat

[Tony_T]

I've heared cougars will take them too without getting quilled.

Not first hand exp.like I've seen with fishers.

Maybe someone out west can chim in on this?

We have the big cats here but no one from Fish and Wildlife will admit it......regardless they are a rarity.

[SwampDonkey]

The last of them cougars were trapped out in the 30's here and sightings since have never been proven. Some of the sightings and descriptions have ranged from the bizarre, hallucinogenic, to impossible.  The old time hunters that actually hunted by walking in the woods for miles have never reported anything since the mid thirties and before that sightings were very are. This modern hunting from pick up trucks and 4 wheelers covers a lot of miles but nothing in comparison to walking in undeveloped areas. I always seen way more wild life in a given scope of ground when on hoof. You can't here the woods and see as much sign beating down a trail or road on a machine, it dulls the senses.