On Friday, we talked about a story about a dog who had to undergo a 6 hour surgery to remove porcupine quills from its snout. Then someone texted in to the studio and said they hit one in the Thousand Islands and it popped their tire! Which made me realize…I have a lot of questions about porcupines. First of all, I didn’t realize we had porcupines in our area. But they do live among us, they’re just nocturnal, so we don’t often see them. Porcupines are the 2nd largest rodent in North America (after the North American Beaver), weighing around 20 pounds and measuring 2 to 3 feet long. Adults are covered in around 30,000 quills. But contrary to popular belief, they don’t throw their quills. Instead, when they’re attacked, they swat their predator with their tails. Quills easily penetrate and become embedded in the attacker’s skin. Each quill has microscopic barbs which makes them difficult and painful to remove. Their predators include fishers, cougars, black bears, coyotes, and wolves. Learn more about porcupines in the audio below!