Blue Ridge Wildlife Center Patient of the Week: North American Porcupine

How do you examine a porcupine? Very carefully!

This young adult porcupine was brought to us by a Winchester, Virginia police officer after being found in a parking garage in the downtown area. To minimize his stress (and ours) this patient was anesthetized for examination. During the exam, harsh lung sounds were heard, possibly due to a respiratory infection.

Although some quills were missing, most likely from defending himself against a predator, this porcupine still had most of his quills intake, which is why we used heavy-duty leather gloves to move him during his exam (as seen in this video). We had quite a few quills embedded in our gloves after that!

Contrary to popular belief, porcupines cannot throw or eject their quills. Their quills have barbs that will embed in tissue if touched and are very difficult to remove. Never attempt to handle a porcupine yourself and be sure to keep pets away if you see one, as they will defend themselves if necessary. If you or your pet gets quilled, seek appropriate medical attention and do not attempt to remove the quills yourself.

This patient is being treated for a respiratory infection with antibiotics and recovering well. We are hopeful that he can be released soon! Photo / BRWC

Because a parking garage is no place for a porcupine, he will be returned to the same general area but in a more appropriate location.

Thank you to the Winchester Police Department for containing this prickly patient and getting it to our wildlife hospital for care!

Are you surprised that porcupines are in Virginia?

Though porcupines are native, they were were extirpated (locally extinct) from Virginia in the mid-1800s due to hunting and habitat destruction. Now that their populations are recovering nearby in West Virginia and Maryland, they have been traveling back into Virginia. There have been over two dozen confirmed sightings of these fascinating rodents in the northwestern portion of our state in the last 20 years!

This is our 3,156 patient this year!

If you want to help this porcupine and the 3,000+ other patients we treat each year, please donate to BRWC on #GivingTuesday! Wildlife Centers don’t receive state or Federal funding for what we do. We rely on your donations to save wild animals and return them to the wild.

This year on #GivingTuesday (November 30th) starting at 8am, donations made through Facebook will be matched with an $8 million dollar pledge by the social media platform until the matching funds are exhausted. Your donation will ALSO be matched by our generous board of directors until those funds are met as well. That gives your donation the opportunity to be TRIPLED, going further than any other time! Please save the date to make a big impact for wildlife.