Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 57
By Ben Moyer
S
OME WILD THINGS fly under the
radar of our attention. They're not
prized as game, food or fur, aren't flashy
and pose few real or perceived threats
to our interests. Porcupines are like that,
though few people would fail to ogle one
in an encounter.
Porcupines trundle unobtrusively
through some Pennsylvania forests but
not others. That distribution is among
the most interesting aspects of porcupine
ecology - where they live, where they
don't and why.
I grew up in southwestern Pennsylvania,
where we never saw a porcupine,
alive or dead, and never knew of any.
Except for references in Game News
and the resulting sense that they lived in
Pennsylvania's " far " northern counties,
porcupines, to me, were as exotic as polar
bears. If not for a school friend, whose dad
had a camp in Jefferson County near the
Game Commission's original Ross Leffler
School of Conservation, my personal
introduction to porcupines would have
come much later.
My friend invited me to camp often.
We kids would cram into the truck while
his dad drove backroads spotting deer, a
heady experience then in its own right.
Jouncing along through the darkness, a
chilled hand holding the light outside the
window and the excitement of glowing
eyes along the woods' edge was something
that fanned a kid's awakening sense
that wild things and out-of-the-way places
could be both mysterious and accessible,
a lifelong hook.
We saw lots of deer and some porcupines,
shadowed hunches of quill and hair
that shuffled away in the headlights. We
piled out and inspected them by flashlight,
but not too close. It was hard to see their
real shape beneath the shroud of arrayed
quills and the long guard hairs adorning
the head. I returned to school with stories
of faraway wildlife, failing to grasp that
a two-hour drive north wasn't so far from
home.
The next porcupine I remember seeing
was along a hiking trail in Kettle Creek
State Park in Clinton County, where I
worked for a time as park naturalist. It
waddled along the path ahead, then scuttered
up a tree, stopping at about head
height. There, it clutched the bark with
its arced claws and peered back, its quills
splayed across its hindquarters and tail
as if a leaf blower was aimed against the
grain of its pelt. I took a photo and left it
Where the quilled one?
MARCH 2024
57
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024
Contents
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - Cover1
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - Cover2
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - Contents
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 2
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 3
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 4
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 5
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 6
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 7
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 8
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 9
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 10
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 11
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 12
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 13
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 14
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 15
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 16
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 17
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 18
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 19
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 20
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 21
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 22
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 23
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 24
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 25
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 26
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 27
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 28
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 29
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 30
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 31
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 32
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 33
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 34
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 35
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 36
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 37
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 38
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 39
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 40
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 41
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 42
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 43
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 44
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 45
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 46
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 47
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 48
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 49
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 50
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 51
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 52
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 53
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 54
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 55
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 56
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 57
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 58
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 59
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 60
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 61
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 62
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 63
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - 64
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - Cover3
Pennsylvania Game News - March 2024 - Cover4
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