Research Report #21 — Of Porcupines and People
For many years scientists and naturalists have been studying and observing the flora and fauna of the Shawangunk Ridge. Foremost among them was Daniel Smiley, for whom Mohonk Preserve’s Daniel Smiley Research Center is named. Dan wrote numerous reports summarizing his observations on various topics. This regularly occurring series will feature some of these reports; some hold tremendous scientific value today and just await an interested researcher to follow up, others showcase a quirky sense of humor or highlight an oddity of nature.
Read the reports: Population Dynamics: Of Porcupines and People. May 1970, and Research Supplement, December 1976. Daniel Smiley.
A note from Paul C. Huth, Director of Research Emeritus:
Reading these two reports today, I can again appreciate the breadth and depth of Daniel Smiley’s life long interest in ecosystem components and dynamics. Here, just after the first Earth Day, he uses as an example, the native Porcupine to write his Research Report, examining the pressing environmental questions of the day like population, food and sustainability, and the lasting affects of human uses to the landscape. Dan felt that “In our concern for human environmental problems, it behooves us not to forget that there is still much practical and philosophical insight to be gained from ecosystems in nature.” That is still very true today!
As for the Porcupine, I remember that while on a day long field trip in early May 1980, I was hiking with a colleague on the old trail from Millbrook Mountain Road to the cliff top exposure called Gertrude’s Nose, when we were unexpectedly joined at the beginning of the escarpment in the Palmaghatt by a small young dog with a mouth full of Porcupine quills. Though very uncomfortable, he made friends and stayed with us for the rest of our field trip. Afterwards, we subsequently delivered him to a local vet, where he was treated, and later successfully reunited with his owner.
That experience reminded me again of the presence of Porcupines in the Shawangunks and that we now see regular evidence of them on our field trips. From records at the Daniel Smiley Research Center, which Dan gathered in his research supplement in 1976, this was not always the case. On 11 September 1930, Dan documented the observation of a Porcupine made by his brother Keith near Mohonk Lake on Forest Drive. Dan added….“As far as I know this is the first record here. I have heard that they are found in the Clove….and found regularly around Minnewaska and Lake Awosting. If this is true, migration to Mohonk might have come from the SW (southwest) along the ridge.”
From this “first record” at Mohonk in 1930 (at least undocumented at Mohonk during the 61 years from when the Smiley Family first came to Mohonk in 1869 to 1930), Dan documents a definite increase in the local Porcupine population and the mounting and inevitable conflict with people. He also noted in the 1940s and 1950s the increase in Porcupine feeding damage to trees in the vicinity of Mohonk. From his extensive field experience, Dan presents his interest in advancing natural species predator-prey relationships “of controlling animal populations through reintroduction of the balance of nature — in the porcupine’s case, this would mean the reintroduction of the fisher, it’s principle predator.”
The Fisher, a large member of the Weasel Family, was the main predator of Porcupines in presettlement times. Trapping the Fisher for its fur, and to remove them from the constant predation threat to domestic stock, like chickens, caused their extirpation from the Shawangunks and Catskills by the early 19th century. As Dan indicates, with the removal of the Fisher, the Porcupine “kept on breeding at its slow, steady rate,” individuals only being killed occasionally by farmers and local residents when coming in too close to interact with domestic animals and sometimes damaging buildings like barns and outhouses. As farming and forest resource harvest declined in the first half of the 20th century, the landscape recovered from some 300 years of heavy human use to an increasingly wild state. The resulting natural regrowth of ridge forests and the overgrowing of former farm fields allowed for surprising changes in wildlife populations, including Porcupines. Dan noted, at the end of 1950, that Porcupines were “abundant compared to past years.”
In 1969, Dan learned that consideration was being given by wildlife biologists for reintroduction of the Fisher in the Catskills to reduce the Porcupine population there. With long standing cooperation between the Mohonk Trust and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the DEC began reintroducing live-trapped and radio collared Fisher from the Adirondacks, first in the Shawangunks in late 1976, 1977, and 1978, and in the Catskills in late 1978 and 1979. With a special agreement between the State and the Mohonk Trust, the first Fisher, a young male, 7.7 pounds, was released on Trust land on 5 November 1976, at Rhododendron Swamp. Between 1976 and 1979, a total of 42 Fisher were released. In the 1980s, winter bait stations were established, and Mohonk Preserve staff participated in observing tracks and Fisher feeding. Over the next two decades increasing annual Fisher observations showed a slow but successful reintroduction and species establishment. Individuals were occasionally seen by Preserve hikers and staff year round and reported to the Research Center. Of special interest to us was the first discovery of winter kills of Porcupines by Fisher here in the Shawangunks.
In recent years, Porcupines are still seen frequently on the ridge. Sometimes as individuals waddling along on the forest floor, a single individual feeding on a branch high in a tree, a rocky den discovered by sight and smell, or as sometimes is the case, a small one seen sleeping on a branch of a Hemlock tree in warm sun where it had recently been feeding! But it is on the ground that Porcupines are again most vulnerable to the Fisher.
In closing his Research Report, Dan returns to the human ecosystem, feeling that “….we, at last, are beginning to realize that our own environment is in deep trouble, perhaps beyond complete restoration. He goes on to muse, “Perhaps there is a porcupine chomping on the bark in a Catskill hemlock who is slowly ruminating on the rise and decline of humans in their ecosystem. But it is unlikely that he will help us with our problem.”
Read the reports: Population Dynamics: Of Porcupines and People. May 1970, and Research Supplement, December 1976. Daniel Smiley.
