Speaking of Wildlife
—by Jamie Proctor
Welcome to the eighteenth column describing the animals of Speaking of Wildlife – Ontario animals that can’t be released back into the wilderness of Ontario due to permanent injuries or over-habituation to humans. Today we’ll be looking at a pair of north America’s least-permeable prey animals: Hawthorn and Quillow, our North American Porcupines.
The porcupines of the Americas are a cadet branch of the greater porcupine family, which has deep roots in Africa and remains there to this day, as well as across southern Asia. Cross-continental porcupine travel appears to have occurred from Africa to South America millions of years ago, back when the Atlantic was narrower, followed by crossing Panama once the northern and southern continents linked there. On average these American porcupines are smaller than their older cousins (the crested porcupine, largest of these larger lads, can top sixty pounds) but their largest is the North American Porcupine, which is also the only porcupine of the Americas found north of Mexico.
North American Porcupines are the second-largest rodents in Canada, ranking just behind beavers and weighing in at just about twenty pounds a porcupine. Despite this, they’re semi-arboreal, being quite comfortable climbing trees – sometimes even when they shouldn’t be, such as when tempted by green shoots on thin branches (bone injuries are pretty common among wild porcupines for this reason).
Dietarily they’ll eat plant matter ranging from berries and seeds to roots and leaves, but in winter will fall back to eating needles and bark. By far their most famous quality is their quills, which average somewhere around thirty thousand per porcupine, dislodge easily when impacted into skin, and are barbed and tend to splinter when pulled at, making them tremendously painful and prone to infection.
The porcupine famously can NOT shoot its quills, but when it can whirl on the spot and clobber you full-force with its quilled tail, it really, really, really doesn’t need to. Their predators in the wild are few – most famously fishers, which are fast, fierce, and adept at climbing – and even if the porcupine is killed, the pain, injury, and even potential death suffered in the course of the meal acts as a powerful deterrence against making it a part of a regular meal.
Truthfully, the most successful predator of porcupines to ever exist is probably the common car – their impressive defensive armoury means speed has never been a necessary trait for porcupines, which doesn’t behoove them well during road crossings.
Hawthorn and Quillow arrived at Speaking of Wildlife years apart in very different ways: Hawthorn is almost ten years old; Quillow is an adult, but her exact age is unknown. Hawthorn was born in captivity to incapable parents and had to be human-reared a week after his birth; Quillow was rescued for surgery after having her pelvis fractured by a car, and was discovered to have suffered probable brain damage from raccoon roundworm, rendering her abnormally calm to human contact.
Hawthorn displays his fondness of the Speaking of Wildlife staff by attempting to flirt with us; Quillow tries to follow us around and likes being scooped up and carried.
I have an entirely typical relationship with Hawthorn for a member of staff: I give him rodent chow and move his food and water around, and in exchange he shambles up to me on his back legs like an old man and attempts to urinate on my boots, while occasionally whining at me when he feels particularly excited or happy.
Quillow, alas, is somewhat more distant to me: I have yet to scoop her up and hold her like a little t-posing teddy bear. Still, she treats me with as much courtesy as any of my coworkers: she follows me around at extremely slow speeds, whines cheerfully at me, gently grasps at my boot, accepts meals, and occasionally (after grabbing hold of her enclosure fence to see if dinner’s coming) very slowly and gently falls over sideways (due to her prior pelvic and brain injuries). Sometimes she even falls over twice. She is unspeakably charming.
You can meet Hawthorn, Quillow, and other inhabitants at Speaking of Wildlife during some of their open houses or other programming, including the upcoming holiday open house. Feel free to have your birthday party there! For more information on these and on opportunities to donate, or have some SOW animals at your next event, follow Speaking of Wildlife on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/SpeakingOfWildlife or go to the website at www.speakingofwildlife.ca.