I was woken up rudely this morning at 1 am by my dogs. Went outside with a flashlight and 44 Mag, just to find this porcupine with erect, rustling quills, stamping feed, huffing and puffing and reversing towards my dogs. Fortunately neither the bull mastiffs nor the Jack Russell was stupid enough to take him on.
Disappointed that it was not a human intruder, I now wanted to shoot at this lot in anyway. My wife put her foot down: "Do you always have to kill things!! Isn't it nice that we can have wildlife like this in our backyard? No, let it out!"
OK, noble thought, but how do you pick up and release an aggro porcupine? I switched of the electric fence and fetched a broom to convince it to crawl through the 4" separated wires. Not easy – the experience of coming in through that 9000-volt was still fresh in his memory. He kept reversing towards me with speed.
Eventually got him out and slipped back into bed.
True story.
Lochi.

Gerhard

Lochi, one of these days you'll find something to shoot in your backyard!

You have even got kwêvoëls nowadays in Jhb.
The biggest man-made forest in the Southern hemisphere they say it is.

Your wife is on the right track as far conservation goes - keep it up, Mam!

These encounters with wild animals are always exciting. Last night when driving home from a friend's house I encountered a wild hedgehog in the middle of the road. I managed not to squash him (their numbers are decreasing in France) even though my wife wasn't in the car.

We don't seem to get porcupines in this area - but we do have white tailed mongoose about 200 yards from the house - and I caught a passing glimpse of what I'm pretty sure was a Leopard the other night..... maybe a couple of hundred yards from the house.

We used to have pretty nice bird life in the garden as well, but that's in decline now we're beginning to get a feral cat population in the area....... one silly cow used to go round every night feeding the bloody things. Thankfully, she's moved away.......

I'll bet you stared at the ceiling till the adrenelin wore off...

Mike

Very suprised to see it as the area is mostly commercial woodland - but I guess it must hold a duiker population etc...... or maybe it eats feral cats ...... Lets hope so!

Good to see you back.


Okie John

A nice set of quills would have looked nice in the lappa!!!

I shot a Porcupine in SA near the limpopo on the Botswana border in 1999.The quills look good in vase on my fireplace mantle Dave

quote:

Originally posted by shakari:
Very suprised to see it as the area is mostly commercial woodland - but I guess it must hold a duiker population etc...... or maybe it eats feral cats ...... Lets hope so!

An Aussie sent me info on getting rid of feral house cats crush 2 aspirin in a saucer of milk or use 2 tsp of dimetapp cough medicine in milk,a 22 hp or a 30-06 does take care of kitties,use a hav-a-hart trap baited with sardines or cat food then cover it with canvas and drape it over the tail pipe and start up your vehicle carbon monoxide takes care of kitty

quote:

Originally posted by shakari:
We used to have pretty nice bird life in the garden as well, but that's in decline now we're beginning to get a feral cat population in the area....... one silly cow used to go round every night feeding the bloody things. Thankfully, she's moved away.......

Steve, go to the Small Game Forum, Digital Dan and the group have lots of ways to handle them. I am sure them would love to hear about your local leopard and that it may be helping out with the ferals.

Hog Killer

I've never heard of the asprin trick - but I find a live catch trap and an air rifle work pretty well....... and find a chicken carcass works well for bait.

They really are a problem as they breed faster than they can be caught and then just devestate the wild bird and small mammal populations.

A PCP air rifle with a silencer is the best medicine for feral cats, quick and easy. Even my wife don't know when I get rid of them.

Lochi,
Have you ever tried a porcupine on a spit braai? They are delicious.

What does Porcupine taste like?

Its a bit prickly!

Sorry, it's a bit difficult to describe - I'd say its somewhere between pork and chicken but very tender. Another way to cook it is to encase it in mud and bake it in the embers of the fire. Then you break it open and as the mud falls away it takes any remaining spines and skin away with it and leaves you the good bits.

Lochi:

You're a good guy! C'mon, in many states of the US, it used to be (and maybe still is) against the law to kill a porcupine (because a man lost in the woods can run them down and kill them for food -at least that was the original intent of the laws) BTW, judging from reading some of the other posts - what kind of porcupines do you guys have down there?

Gerry...

In no way similar to n American porcupine. I have run aftre some and see many in Canada. They are slow and not too worried about intruders. They remind me of big hedgehogs!

African porcupines are a good deal larger with much longer quills and are way quicker and get pissed off way faster and are generally prepared to do something about it instead of loping along