I have not seen a porcupine in decades; nor had Doug Thorburn who took these pictures earlier in the week. I suspect the reason is that a porcupine is usually active at night, while we are not.
The porcupine was ascending a gravel bank.
Porcupines are vegetarians that favour tree leaves, buds, and bark. Bank erosion has given it access to roots.
Porcuportrait
Doug Thorburn’s images are used with permission.
I haven’t seen or heard of any in a long while either. Usually someone’s dog gets a lesson in porcupines and skunks. Certainly no such shortage of skunk encounters but I haven’t heard of any porcupines in years.
We had enormous porcupines in New Brunswick. My Border Collie cornered one and got a face, mouth, chest and front legs full of quills. The vet worked for quite some time removing them and based on the amount of the vet’s bill (which I broke down per quill) I estimated that a porcupine was worth about $30,000!! The vet warned me to keep the dog close from now on because the dog would try to ‘get even’ with every porcupine he spied from then on.