PURPOSEFUL PORCUPINE

'A witty writer is like a porcupine; his quill makes no distinction between friend and foe.' ~ Josh Billings 

My friend Ellen and I were having one of our magical conversations when she mentioned some facts about porcupine I didn't know. This led to a deep research dig that resulted in amazement at how much the usefulness of the misunderstood is often underestimated.

 “Quill pigs”, as porcupine are otherwise known, are among the largest nocturnal rodents. They bear no actual relation to pork, and have been roaming the Earth for at least 8 million years, a fair while longer than our first ancestors. Porcupine climb trees, display excellent balance and swim well, supplementing their mostly herbivorous diets with larvae and carrion.

 In addition to the 30 000-odd quills covering the typical adult, porcupine will stamp feet, click teeth, hiss and growl when upset. Their mantle of hollow spikes rises and vibrates, creating a distinctive rattle that has led to the collection of quills as musical instruments across cultures since time immemorial, and served as ingenious hiding places for smuggling gold dust. Attack is highly effective from the rear, surprising potential foe and leaving sore wounds – each quill is tipped with a fishhook-like scale, embedding into flesh even as it slips easily from the usually shy creature. Mating is for life and families are raised through the mutual efforts of both parents.

Born to Burrow

Along with other rodents (derived from the Latin, meaning “to gnaw”), porcupine’s razor-sharp incisors and claws grow continuously. And they have a reputation among scientists as ecological engineers for two reasons: it turns out that Old World types like ours, the Cape variety - there are two kinds, and the “New” ones predominate above ground in the USA - forage over vast tracts of Europe, Asia and Africa. This natural, repetitive action deeply and positively affects surrounding ecosystems and directly impacts the continuation of species, because on their wide rambling jaunts for tubers and seeds, porcupine dig big conical holes, allowing water to infiltrate the soil crust and create natural seedling sites. Since they disturb vital topsoil across their vast wandering ways, porcupine level arable landscapes and benefit our survival directly.

The second reason is because porcupine ring bark and munch on the cambium of certain trees. The Tamboti, for example, is highly toxic to us and most wildlife. Only rhino and porcupine eat its toxic, oozing bark. Its generic name, Spirostachys, refers to the spiral arrangement of the flowers on the spike. The strong wood makes beautiful furniture, hardy gun-stocks, arrows and poisonous latex, used for stupefying fish. The tree, in turn, is allelopathic (meaning it influences other plants by producing biochemicals that affect the growth, reproduction, germination and very life of the flora around them). If not for such amazing creatures keeping tree populations down, there would be far less ecological

diversification in Africa!

Our current geological era, the Anthropocene, is characterized by unprecedented, human-induced environmental change. Our so-called development – urban, agricultural and industrial – has utterly transformed all land-use systems, everywhere. Until now, porcupine have adapted and even thrived from this shift, but in the process they’ve become tarnished as vermin, killed for the sport and the plate (reliable information says some discerning diners have cultivated palettes for their dark-red meat, tenderised in red wine). And since many folks in the Midlands have become increasingly annoyed when their prized bulbs vanish overnight, extremem measures have been taken to curtail their movements. Ellen's sister had a similar problem at the coast, but instead of provoking literal arse-about-face distress she took a different approach, sprinkling carrot ends, avocado pips, butternut and potato peels at the edge of her garden. From that first evening on, not a single garden bulb has been touched by these highly intelligent creatures. 

In the words of Henry Beston, 'We need another and a wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals...We patronize them for their incompleteness, for their tragic fate of having taken form so far below ourselves. And therein we err, and err greatly.' Indeed, we do.