The newest member at Perkins

A new milestone for Perkins Wildlife Center and the Museum of Natural History occurred last Friday with the adoption of a baby porcupine! Last Thursday one of the staff members drove all the way to Philadelphia to pick up this little guy. The porcupine, who is still nameless, but will most likely be called Pierce is 10 days old. This is a big deal for the museum because porcupines were once native to the Ohio region. They were then found only in the PA and eastern coast. However, slowly they are starting to move back into Ohio.
Pierce is a captive born porcupine however his mother was wild. The Philadelphia zoo could not keep him so the museum gladly stepped in to adopt him. Instead of making Pierce into a hands-on animal, he is going to remain as wild as possible. This is mostly due to the fact that he has quills. When a porcupine is born, quills begin to harden immediately from his fur. So, picking him up is obviously not the best idea, unless you have leather gloves.
When Pierce first arrived at Perkins, no one, not even the staff members wanted to pick him up. So, I volunteered to pick him up so they could get a good picture of him and attempt to feed him. When I put the gloves on he immediately got squeamish so I rested him against my chest. Bad idea. I could feel his little baby quills poking through my shirt. Once all of the pictures were taken I tried to put him back on the table, however, he was stuck to my shirt! Getting him off was quite an adventure. Due to this experience we realized that his bald butt area was a result of him constantly being picked up and his quills gets pulled out. Although this isn't that big of a deal because quills grow in quickly, we don't want to put extra stress on the porcupine. Another side note is that he has to be fed every 6 hours, so we have our work cut out for us! It was quite an adventure with our newest member of Perkins and I can't wait to see him grow up over my next few weeks!

Sorry for the bad filming of the video!