Ray Fadden’s Needles & Porcupines

When I decided to start off the New Year writing about the Porcupine, immediately Ray Fadden and Needles, a baby Porcupine he rescued, came to mind. Ray Fadden grew up in the Adirondack Mountains. He spent many years learning all he could about the environment around him. He studied and learned all he could about the Haudenosaunee culture and the Creator’s creatures. Not only did Ray have this desire to learn about these things, he also spent his life devoted to them.  I do not think there is one family connected to Akwesasne who has not had their lives touched and enriched by Ray Fadden.  Ray came to Akwesasne in the late 1930s as one of the first teachers at the St. Regis Mohawk School.  At this time, the Indian was considered to be a savage who needed to forget his culture and learn the ways of the modern world if he was to survive. Ray diligently, sometimes ferociously fought against that movement. He published many posters and pamphlets about our culture that are still in print today. Ray spent his days in the Adirondacks feeding thousands of birds and the animals that he shared the mountains with.  He was an environmentalist before being one was even considered an in thing. Needles, the Porcupine came to him, I believe, through a young student who found the baby Porcupine in the woods and brought it to school to show to his teacher, Mr. Ray Fadden.  Ray told the child that the baby Porcupine should have been left where he found it. The child thought it was lost, but Ray told him that when its mother foraged for food, the baby was left to sit quietly until she returned.  There was nothing else Mr. Fadden could do, but take the baby Porcupine home and feed it. If you were lucky enough to hear the story from Ray, some parts were rib tickling humorous.  He talked about getting up every couple of hours to the ear shattering sound of a hungry baby crying to be fed. He had to feed Needles with a concoction of milk he made by using an eyedropper. He was extremely happy when Needles got old enough to lap up the milk from a bowl, which did not require Ray to get up every few hours for feeding time.

Needles started to eat solids with his favorites being bananas, milk, and toast. The toast had to be almost burned to be sort of like bark. Perhaps that is why Needles tipped the scales at a little bit over 40 pounds.

The funniest, by far, part of Ray’s story was the following: He said to me, “I taught that Porcupine to use paper on the floor to do his business, and I built a door so he could go outside and come in when he wanted. Sometimes he would go into the woods for a few hours, but every night he came home and slept in his bed under the kitchen sink.  One evening, Needles did not come home. I think he had a girlfriend in the woods, but he would still return home at night. When he didn’t come home that night, I could not sleep. With a flashlight in hand I searched the woods looking for him all night long. As the night began to turn into morning, Needles appeared.  He came running down the trail running as fast as I have ever seen him run. He ran right by me and went into the house where he relieved himself on the newspaper.  I never saw such a stream come out of him.  Apparently that little rascal had held it in all night because he was trained to do it on the newspaper!” That story, when I think about it, still makes me laugh.  Ray’s Porcupine, Needles was a North American Porcupine belonging to the family, Erethizon dorstaum. They are the second largest rodent in the Northeast. The beaver is the largest.  Porcupines have lived in North America for over three million years. They are seldom seen alive because they are nocturnal creatures. Occasionally you may find evidence of their presence on wood paddles, wooden tools, or other wooden objects in your yards that were handled by humans. This is because Porcupines love salt. The perspiration from our hands contains salt and is on the wooden things we sometimes leave out over night. Adult Porcupines weigh anywhere from 10 to 26 pounds and they are 18 to 28 inches long. They have a small head and small legs. They have a strong tail and very long, sharp claws.  A female usually has one offspring per season. These babies remain with their mothers for about three months. Fortunately for the mother, the baby’s quills do not harden until they are two to three months old.  Porcupines eat vegetation and fruit, and in the winter they change their diet to eat the cambium layer of trees and conifer needles. The American Porcupine is the only tree climber in the world’s Porcupine family. It uses its stiff quills on its tail to brace itself and stay attached to tree limbs.  When they rest in a tree, they flatten themselves and appear to be a nest in the tree. Their sharply pointed quills are their most obvious feature. Their quills are actually stiff hollow hairs. Porcupines have three layers of hair. The first is a layer that provides insulation and warmth. The second is designed to keep off rain and snow. The third is the Porcupine’s highly effective defense mechanism known as the quills. Each Porcupine has over 30,000 quills. The quills are loosely attached to their skin so they can be easily detached during a defensive confrontation. It is believed by some that the Porcupine can throw its quills - this is not true.  Since the quills are attached loosely, they will sometimes come off when they come in contact with something or when they make a quick movement.   When approached by danger the Porcupine raises its quills and curls up into a ball.  If it is attacked, it will swing its spiky tail at the attacker. Any attacker that gets hit with that tail or brushes against the Porcupine’s body will be quickly impaled with a bunch of barbed spikes.  Many a dog has returned home with a snout and sometimes a body full of quills.

I found a Website: http://www.thepetcenter.com/gen/pq.html that talks about animals who have quills imbedded in their bodies. It says the following:

Home Removal of Porky Quills:

If your dog only has a few quills and you are sure there are none in the mouth or throat, you can remove quills yourself at home. First, get a pair of pliers, then something to cover the dog’s eyes so it doesn’t see those pliers approaching.  Cover the dog’s eyes with your hand if necessary and speak softly to your pet. Do not act frantic or you will freak your dog out even worse!  With the dog’s eyes covered, bring the pliers up to a quill and grab the quill firmly and close to the skin. The dog will jerk backward and will separate himself from the quill.  Sometimes you can grab more than one quill at a time, too.  If the dog will be cooperative, coax it to accept your next attempt at removing more quills and eventually you may be able to remove a number of them.  You may have to give the dog a break for a few minutes, too, between rounds of quill pulling. Remember, if there are a large number of quills or if there are a number deep in the mouth, your dog deserves the benefits of anesthesia at the veterinarian’s office.  If there are only a few, you can certainly try to remove them at home. This site also states that the quills are NOT barbed as we think. They say the quills do not have barbs at their ends, and only rarely will actually migrate through the dog’s tissues.  The points of the quills are extremely sharp and stiff, and when seen under a microscope they actually appear as if they have scales or shingles, not barbs, that point backward. Once imbedded into tissues they can be difficult to remove, especially the tiny ones that can break before being removed. Hopefully this does not happen to your dog, but I know it possibly can because I have seen quite a few pathetic looking animals with snouts full of quills here at Akwesasne.