Tahoe Wildlife - We Have A Very Prickly Neighbor

We've seen porcupines in Tahoe, but those sightings are rare. Yet on a recent hike, we encountered the biggest porcupine we've ever seen.

photo from pixabay.com

When that tough guy sensed our presence, he (she?) turned away from us and fluffed up its quills until it was a ball of spikes.  Yikes.

All we could think of was what it must be like for a coyote or bobcat or dog to come upon this creature and swat at it with a paw or start sniffing too close.

There is a rude joke that skunks and porcupines only have one natural predator - the automobile. Sad, but probably true.

So we waited, and our prickly neighbor eventually wandered into the brush, safer from any and all threats than rattlesnakes. Not even those master predators from the sky - the raptors - have much chance at taking a porcupine. Porcupines are a marvelous example of how evolution can conjure up impenetrable defenses.