Animals: Porcupine War

The fat, waddling, brown-black-&-yellowish-white, bead-eyed, strong-toothed, sharp-quilled porcupine of the West (erethizon epixanthum) has been protected for years for the same reason that porcupines are protected in the North and East: it is the one animal of the forest which man, lost in the woods without a firearm, could be sure of killing to escape starvation.

Largest of North American terrestrial rodents, the porcupine is, however, a highly destructive emergency food supply to have wandering unmolested through the land. It is a voracious vegetarian, not at all fastidious. Besides all manner...

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