Porcupines

I studied North American porcupines for my master’s thesis at Cal Poly Humboldt with Dr. Tim Bean. We conducted a field study that involved radio-collaring and tracking porcupines in the Tolowa Dunes of northern coastal California to learn about their resource selection strategies in this part of their range.

Porcupine populations are suspected to be declining in western North America, so we also collected occurrence records to track their historical and contemporary distribution in northern California, where porcupines are now listed as a Species of Special Concern, and then expanded this effort into Oregon and Washington.

If you’re interested in learning more about our porcupine work, check out this webinar I presented for Oregon Wild!

Media features

• “Pining Away? As the climate shifts, porcupines face a prickly future.” by Jennifer S. Holland (National Wildlife Magazine)
• “Amid widespread decline, Spokane region remains something of a porcupine redoubt.” by Ben Goldfarb (The Spokesman-Review)
• “Loud porcupines rescued from Tahoe’s Caldor Fire are finally going home.” by Ashley Harrell (SFGATE)
• “Where have all the porcupines gone?” by Dawn Stover (Columbia Insight)