A Porcupine at Last!

Nate, an enthusiastic second semester wildlife student, asked to tag along on a check of the game cameras during his study hall today. I happily obliged and we made a great discovery! We have finally confirmed the presence of porcupines (Erethizon dorsatum) in the T.A. forest. After finding tracks back in January with my semester one students, I have been using a game camera to monitor a suspected porcupine den in a small hemlock grove for a few weeks now. We still haven't captured a porcupine using the camera on the den but we did even better this morning. As we arrived in the vicinity of the den, we noticed a large number of hemlock branch clippings in the fresh snow under one tree in particular.

Check out one of the partially nibbled hemlock branches that clued us in to the porcupine's presence 

A quick look upward revealed the characteristic dark "blob" near the top of the tree. We had finally found the porcupine. This individual hasn't been on the ground since our most recent snow and was only evident because of the food scraps it has been dropping from the tree. Nate was extra excited as this was the first porcupine he had ever seen in the woods! Eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) is an important source of food and shelter for porcupines in the winter. These winter "resistors" rely heavily on hemlock needles for food and leave plenty of evidence of their presence to the observant eye. The hemlock's thick canopy not only provides food but also protection from wind and snow. 

Can you make out the porcupine resting in the tree?

On a related note, I observed my first ever set of fisher (Martes pennanti) tracks in the T.A. forest while checking cameras on Wednesday this past week. The fisher is the only effective predator of porcupines in Maine. They take them on by biting at their face where they have no quills. Porcupines are particularly vulnerable to fishers while on the ground but are not completely out of danger in the trees either. The fisher is equally adept at hunting in the canopy. Hopefully we can capture this apex predator on the game camera in the near future. Stay tuned.....

Fisher tracks in the snow behind T.A. Note the characteristic bounding gait pattern.