Porcupine Parents Protect Babies from Leopard

Porcupine Parents Protect Babies from Leopard

They be Stuck Up.  Size of those Quills.  Would think the cat will be licking and pulling those from it's paws all night.

If the African Porcupine has the same type of quills as the Canadian porcupine that are hooked at the tip, then the leopard will be suffering for quite some time.

As these cannot be pulled back out from the entry point but must be pushed through to be completely removed.

I've removed quills from several dogs (in the country side and rural areas not in the cities) I've had in the past, and it always involved pliers and snips to remove these from tongues, lips and gums and even their snouts.

Sadly enough one dog did the 'I got quills stuck in me so I'll run home and get help' routine not once, not twice but three times. He was a slow learner I suppose.

Yeah, we had a dumb dog that had to get nailed twice by a porky before he learned.  Had to hold his head between dad's legs while my big brother used a pliers to pull them out. No other way.

The North American porcupine rolls into a ball with head tucked between his front paws. Predators instinctively approach from the rear, usually the weakest part of prey. When the predator does that,  Porky slaps out his tail and fills the predator with quills. Nasty. If not removed, the quills actually work their way further in to the unfortunate predator and it sometimes can be fatal if the face is affected or the predator is crippled in a paw or leg and can't hunt effectively.

In the northern climates, bobcats, Lynx and Cougars will get porkys in deep snow; they lie close to the front of side of the curled-up porky, work their paw under the snow beneath him and flip him over, exposing his underbelly. Amazing.

Back in the day, one of the survival tips for downed Canadian bush pilots was to beat a porcupine to death with a stick, gut and skin it, then roast it on a campfire.

Not at all tasty and it's rather tough meat, but I suppose it would fill your belly.

Yeah, I remember my Dad telling me to never kill a porky, for the reason you posted above. Idaho's Bitterroot mountain chain is extremely remote to this day, and easy to get lost in it.

Trouble with people getting lost in the woods is most often they will unknowingly walk in circles.

And that's on easy terrain.

Mountainous terrain makes it even harder to navigate your path as it's a hard hike or to get a proper sense of "where am I''.

You are dead-on right. It's really frightening when darkness is falling and you have absolutely no idea where the blank you are. These tourists that leave a groomed hiking trail and strike off on their own are always getting lost. Fortunately, 99% of the time they are found and none the worse for wear, except they spent a cold, hungry and lonely night.

Just a note of interesting trivia....my wife and I were white-watering the snake river in Jackson, WY, and the guide told us an interesting story, and I don't think he was BS'ing us. Harrison Ford owned a ranch just out of Jackson Hole, and was a certified, licensed helicopter pilot and belonged to the para-search team (a division of the fire dept. at that time) and was on-call when someone was in peril or missing.

He rescued folks in various emergency situations. So a lost tourist could boast that he was rescued by Harrison Ford.

Of course, then he got the bill for thousands of dollars from Jackson city....$

First star seen at night or late evening is the North Star (Polaris). It is more or less true North. So the true North direction can be found if really lost and it starts to become night.

At least it is here in these woods.

There are quite a few things to eat by foraging in the woods, without hunting or fishing. It's just that almost everyone doesn't know what these are. I wouldn't say it would be enough to live on, but there could be enough to keep the body sustained until getting found or finding your way. Most of the lost people don't even think about finding some water as the first thing to do, until they become dehydrated or very thirsty and it's almost too late.

I never explored mountain regions, but in hilly and flat forests yes I have but that is not actually the same type of experience.

OTOH the US has such a diverse range of different terrain, landscapes and climate that in order to survive in all those different regions would require quite some training.

Edited by 0lds0d, 11 July 2024 - 01:19 PM.

https://snowbrains.com/fun-fact-harrison-ford-is-a-teton-county-wy-volunteer-search-and-rescue-helicopter-pilot-and-has-saved-lives-in-real-life/