We're being Invaded

Help !! We're being invaded...our yard has suddenly become the winter destination resort for Alberta's second largest rodent. PORCUPINE... so far this winter, starting in November before we even had any snow, our shelterbelt of spruce and pine trees became THE place to be...if you're a porcupine, OR is it? given that everyone of them I have caught here...is now fertilizer on another quarter...  and before you threaten me with PETA again...(and I have to say that threat is getting a bit old) I have, what I believe is a legitimate reason for flexing my trigger finger.

We have the unfortunate misfortune to be trying to farm in really crappy soil... a shallow 3 inches of brown wooded topsoil over untold feet of grey clay...and with all the dry years we have experienced lately the usually moist clay has turned to concrete. It is very difficult to get anything to grow at a decent rate when it's roots have to try and penetrate that concrete.  I wish I had a dollar for every tree and shrub I have tried to grow in my yard alone, that hasn't made it...and that is with lots of water and fertilizer...so 40 years ago when R's parents planted several rows of spruce, pine and fruit trees as a shelterbelt it was a huge undertaking each row is about 150 evenly spaced trees that run half the length of our home quarter.  For 23 years they kept between the rows tilled up so there was no competition for moisture and nutrients.When I first came here 17 years ago the tops of those trees were at eye level...so they grew from seedlings to about 5 feet tall in that 23 years... after living here for a year, I decided that the tilling was detrimental to the root growth and stopped tilling, we let the grass and moss grow in and just kept it mowed, after another 5 years...we stopped the mowing because the trees had grown to the point where we were breaking branches to get through with the tractor and mower.  Since then the trees have grown to over 20 feet tall and are beautiful...so after all the effort that has gone in to keeping them alive and thriving...I am not about to let some nocturnal little bark chewing rodent move in here and destroy these trees...they like the shelterbelt because the trees are close to one another and they don't have to travel far in the two feet of snow we have to get thier next meal.

So in Nov. before the snow came I shot a really big porcupine and took these photo's

look at the teeth...they are suppose to be orange in colour I read, but they are just like mouse teeth.

The claws are what enable them to climb to the tops of a tree like some lithe Cirque de` soliel performer.>



If the porcupine chews the bark off all the way around the trunk (called girdling) and damage the cambium layer that feeds the tree it will die...we have two pine trees already turned brown due to this girdling of the bark...I refuse to lose anymore trees.  The porcupine can live on willow bark and such in the wild there is no need for them to eat our yard trees....v

I had to shoot another porcupine in early January that was in a Ponderosa Pine that is 5 feet from our house...he wasn't even trying to be stealthy it was 4 pm and I saw him on a lower branch and the bark was flying...v

We came home from the city in mid January to find our brown lab's face full of porcupine quills...and I am sure the yellow lab would have had them too if he wasn't so crippled up and had bothered to get off the deck to investigate... we don't appreciate having to pull quills at 11 pm in -25 * weather. R got bit for all his trouble to try to restrain the dog.  This is about the third time for these dogs getting the worst of an encounter with a porcupine.

And then, just last night I had to shoot a third porcupine, that was in the shelterbelt. The dogs had him up a tree and were barking enough to wake the dead...so out I trudge and low and behold there he was...so I trotted back to the house to get my rabbit gun  before I shot the porcupine R had to put the dogs back in the barn... So ta da...three less porcupine this winter. But  don't despair we see signs of them everywhere...mostly bark chewed off willow branches, pine trees and our neighbours apple tree that is beside the road, so there are still porcupines out there to have babies and make more bark gnawing trouble makers.

We have had cows get into them too, they try to push them around with their noses and let me tell you it is easier to get them out of a cow than it is the dog...we have equipment to restrain the cow... One year a group of 30 yearling heifers found a dead porcupine that must have been in a tree that blew down in a storm and the poor fellow was crushed, the heifers found him and I swear they must have rolled on him more than half of them had quills in their faces, necks, feet and legs... we had to trail them home and spent hours pulling all the quills...by the end we were out there with a flashlight... A couple of months later when the cattle were at home and in the pens nearing calving time one of those heifers was found laying with her legs under her like she was sleeping...but she was dead....R had the vet autopsy her and the only thing they found was a porcupine quill in her liver....it must have migrated there over time and eventually killed her.

So, yes I shoot the little beggers, they aren't getting our trees, dogs or cattle...but just for the record...I only shoot the ones that are in the yard, if they stay away from the buildings...I will leave them alone...after all, there are just too many of them to go around shooting everyone I see.  Stay out of my yard.  Next time I'll tell you all about the wild pigs we are having a showdown with...