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A quilled rodent whose winter bark-eating can damage trees, and which cannot shoot its quills.
Porcupines are covered in sharp quills that protect them from predators. Wild Aware Utah explains that the quills are loosely attached and may lodge in a predator that touches the animal, but a porcupine cannot shoot them. Porcupines are protected animals in Utah.
What they eat changes with the season. Wild Aware says most damage happens in winter, when bark of trees and shrubs is the main food, including elm, fir, maple, oak, pine, poplar, spruce and many fruit and ornamental trees. In summer they are almost exclusively ground feeders, taking grasses, forbs such as dandelions and streamside and wetland plants. They are also attracted to salt, even the salty sweat on wooden tool handles.
Predators such as coyotes, cougars and bobcats prey on porcupines. Keep dogs under control, since barbed quills embed in skin and a veterinarian should remove them. Give a porcupine room, and do not try to test how close a slow animal will let you come.
Stocky rodent covered in quills; may be on the ground or high in a tree.
A protected animal in Utah, per Wild Aware Utah.
Keep pets away and never corner or touch the animal.
Found across Utah, from high mountains to city neighborhoods, and named for its large, mule-like ears.
Utah's state mammal, best known for the fall bugling of bulls during the rut.
The largest member of the deer family in Utah, at home where northern mountain forest meets water.
