Found an injured porcupine? Quills, behaviour and what to do

The crested porcupine (Hystrix cristata) is the largest rodent in Europe and one of Italy's most recognisable wild animals: its quills can reach 35 cm and adults weigh up to 12 kg. Yet despite its intimidating appearance, it's a shy, nocturnal animal that prefers flight to confrontation.

If you've found one injured — often after a road collision — here's what you need to know.

How the porcupine defends itself: debunking the myth

Quills are NOT launched. This is the most widespread and most wrong popular belief. Porcupines cannot project their quills: they use them in passive defence, erecting them and rattling the hollow ones on the tail (producing that distinctive rattling sound).

When threatened, they charge backwards toward the predator. The quills embed in the attacker's flesh because their tips are backward-barbed like fishhooks — not because they're fired.

So: you cannot be hit by quills from a distance. But if you approach carelessly, you can embed a quill in your hand without realising it.

How to pick it up

Never use bare hands.

The correct technique:

• Use sturdy work gloves — leather if possible
• Approach from behind (the head is the safe side, the tail is the danger)
• Lift the animal from the front, keeping the forepaws pinned
• Put it in a wooden crate or rigid container with a lid (cardboard won't hold an agitated porcupine)

If a quill embeds in a glove or your skin: don't pull it sideways — the barbed tip tears tissue. Pull it straight out with a firm, direct movement.

When it needs help

Almost always, if you find it during the day.

The porcupine is strictly nocturnal. Its activity runs from dusk to dawn. Finding one exposed in sunlight, motionless or walking slowly in an open area, is almost always a sign of trouble.

The most common causes in Italy:

• Road collision — it follows the same routes every night, and rural roads have very little lighting
• Rodenticide poisoning — like all rodents, it accumulates toxin by eating poisoned bait or contaminated rodents
• Dog injuries — the quills protect the back but not the belly

What to do while waiting for the rescue centre

• Keep it in the dark and quiet in a closed container
• Don't try to feed it (it's herbivorous but rehabilitation diet has precise proportions)
• Handle it as little as possible
• If quills have embedded in a dog or in you, go to accident and emergency — they're not venomous but puncture wounds from quills infect easily

Something extraordinary

The porcupine never hibernates. In winter it reduces activity and may spend days in its burrow, but it doesn't enter metabolic torpor. On mild January and February nights you can still hear it digging or gnawing.

Its quills are modified hairs: keratin composition, hollow structure, extremely robust. An adult porcupine has about 30,000 of them. When lost, they grow back.

Legal protection

The crested porcupine is protected under Law 157/1992 (Annex A). It cannot be hunted, captured or kept. In some southern regions it is subject to poaching for its meat — report suspicious cases to the wildlife authorities.