This grumpy old fellow shambled close by me in the Naskeag Harbor parking lot last week without a morning greeting or even looking up. (Sex assumed.) He probably was in a bad mood because he usually sleeps all day and the lobster trap stackers down there were making strange noises.
He’s a North American Porcupine, the largest of the porcupines and the only kind that we have in Maine. Their common name is a derivation of the Latin for “spiny pig.” Researchers say that these rodents can be armed with 30,000 or more barbed quills. They don’t shoot those quills; they defend themselves with amazingly fast swats of that spiked tail. Unfortunately, most dogs appear to underestimate how dangerous these fellow mammals are until it’s too late.
At this time of the year, the porcupine diet turns from fruit and plants to mostly wood, whether it’s part of a log cabin or is natural tree bark or woody bush stems. They can seriously damage (even kill) trees and are viewed by many as pests.
State wildlife managers do not consider porcupines worth conserving at their current levels – they may be killed here at any season, in any number, and at any age. That’s another reason for that old fellow to be grumpy in the morning. (Images taken in Brooklin, Maine, on November 15, 2021.)