FREDERICTON – An orphaned porcupine befriended by summer interns with the Nature Conservancy of Canada is going to spend the winter at his new home.
Todd the porcupine, who adopted the interns while they were staying at a Pugwash campground, remains at the Hope for Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Centre near Dartmouth and will remain there for the winter.
“He’s doing quite well, but he’s not ready to be released back into the wild just yet,” Andrew Holland from the Nature Conservancy of Canada said Tuesday. “We’ve been talking to people at the centre to see how he’s doing and we’ve been told that he is quite comfortable in his little enclosure and now has a companion.”
The students were doing work for the conservancy around the Pugwash estuary in July when they noticed the porcupine hanging around their campsite. Each day the porcupine would come out of the woods and sleep under the students’ truck.
Fearing that it was becoming too people friendly and figuring it could get attacked by a dog or another, the organization arranged to have the porcupine transported to the wildlife centre with the hope that it would eventually be released into the wild.
Holland said Todd’s new home has trees and lots of food for it to eat and it’s living in an enclosure with heated floors.
“Todd’s been very active, he’s been doing lots of climbing and likes to wander around,” Holland said.
Interestingly, he said, officials at the wildlife centre have informed the conservancy that Todd is actually a female. Despite that, Holland added, they will keep calling her (or him) Todd.
Holland said the porcupine has developed a following on social media. His Twitter feed @porcupinetodd has numerous followers including singer Jann Arden and comedian Steve Martin while Todd’s Facebook page encouraged people to downtown a photo of the porcupine and take pictures on their travels this past summer.
“He has become a bit of a minor celebrity since he was rescued,” Holland said.
dcole@amherstdaily.com
