Porcupine plague!

[Puke]

Denver Post

Telluride deals with porcupine plague
By Nancy Lofholm
The Denver Post
Posted: 01/02/2009 12:30:00 AM MST
Updated: 01/02/2009 06:58:54 AM MST

Living in the lap of mountain luxury has its good points. But it also has its porcupines.
Mountain Village above Telluride has been suffering tree damage and other annoyances from a plague of porcupines that seem to favor life in this ritzy town of log-and-rock mansions.
The spiny rodents have done more than $100,000 in damage to landscaping by gnawing bark off spruce trees. They have completely stripped some 12-foot-tall yard trees. They have eaten enough bark from 50-foot-high native trees to kill them.
Porcupines also like anything salty and sweaty, so they have chomped on plywood that is treated with a sodium-based substance, as well as on tool handles, footwear and vehicle tires. They've even snacked on a few village doors.
"I've seen porcupines around her for years, but they've never been so aggressive," said Mountain Village homeowner Vicki Irwin, who has seven stripped trees on her property. "It's all just a mystery."
There is much speculation about why the world's third-largest rodent should so favor the Mountain Village this year. There are a few possible reasons:
• A hard winter last year could have contributed to their seemingly ramped-up appetites.
• The rock retaining walls and log structures that are ubiquitous in the village are like inviting custom-built homes for porcupines. The critters like to dig into rock and wood piles and between logs.
• Their favorite cuisine is spruce trees, and many homeowners have planted a lot of spruce to blend in with the bits of spruce forest left when the nouveau village was built.
• The creation of the village scared off the bobcats that are the primary natural nemesis of porcupines.
• About 65 percent of Mountain Village residents live elsewhere for most of the year, so the porcupines can waddle about freely and do their damage unnoticed.
"There are a lot of people who are not there. And they have unintentionally created hiding places for the porcupines," said Critter Gitter pest trapper Tina Mayer of Montrose.
No solid plan yet
Village officials have taken notice and hope to do something about it.
But, "as far as a solid plan, we don't have one yet," said Mountain Village community relations director Nichole Zangara.
Porcupines are just the latest animal-kingdom plague to visit the 13-year-old village.
Several years ago, Western tent caterpillars moved in by the millions and stripped aspen trees bare, leaving their ghostly white "tents" in the branches and making parts of the village look like a Halloween movie set.
It took two years of aerial spraying to get control of the caterpillars.
Meanwhile, the town has created an open space and recreation board that will tackle the porcupine issue and help to get information out to the 4,100 mostly part-time residents.
Mayer said the village should be aware that the next plague already might be hiding outside village manses. She said marmots have been burrowing under hot tubs, excavating 40- to 50-foot-long tunnels behind rock walls and gobbling up shrubs. Mayer recently trapped 12 in one section of wall.
"The marmots are really bad. People need to be aware," she said. "It could be a huge issue."
Nancy Lofholm: 970-256-1957 or nlofholm@denverpost.com

Funny.

[dalebert]

Oh, I'm so relieved. I thought the porcupines themselves had some kind of spreading illness that threatened their numbers.

[Puke]

Maybe nuisance would be a better word?

[Friday]

Cry me a river.     I'd love it if porcupines hung around my house nibbling on trees!! 

[Pat K]

You would be less happy however
if they were eating the siding off your house.

They seem to like that t-11 stuff.

[Lloyd Danforth]

Plant lots of tasty trees near your house to protect it.

[Mike Barskey]

From this article:

Porcupines are becoming a prickly pest...Vicki Irwin said she's never seen the porcupines be so aggressive.

OK, OK. This article is not what we want it to be (freedom activists becoming too successful for the government to handle), but it's cute.

[Kat Kanning]

merged the two threads.