Page 20 - Black Range Naturalist Oct 2020
P. 20

 Follow-ups
A follow-up to our April 2019 article regarding Coati sightings in the Black Range: An informal survey of those who had reported sightings during the summer of 2018 indicated that no sightings occurred during the summers of 2019 and 2020. If you made a sighting of a Coati in the Black Range during 2019 and to date in 2020 please let us know at rabarnes@blackrange.org.
Porcupines
J.R. Absher of the A-Spear ranch, responding to a draft of Harley Shaw’s article in the last issue, noted: “I have never seen any here on the A-Spear, nor have I captured any trailcam images. I’ve seen some tree (bark) damage that could have been from porcupines, though could have just as easily been caused by other rodents ... As an interesting side-note, when I rode wilderness patrol and packed mules in the Mogollons for the USFS in 1979 and ’80, I remember the Gila district offices distributed some brochures
encouraging hunters afield to shoot and kill any porcupines they encountered while hunting.”
Editor: The USDA Forest Service continues to cite porcupines as a source of substantial damage to their tree crops. A 1986 study found that among control methods, “strychnine bait blocks for porcupine control in forests is ineffective.” Efforts “to control porcupine numbers” within the Southwest Region have a long history. “Porcupine Control Work on Two National Forests” appeared in The Forest Worker1. That article noted that in 1927, 1,374 porcupine dens had been baited in the Coconino and Tusayan National Forests in Arizona. This level of activity warranted special staffing. In the mid-1930’s, Dean Cutler was a CCC foreman at the Wood-Springs Camp in charge of porcupine control, for instance.2
1. The Forest Worker, Vol. 4, No. 2, March 1928, p. 12 
 2. Timeless Heritage: A History of the Forest Service in the Southwest, p. 164.
In “Distribution of the North American Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum) in Northern California”, William T. Bean et al.
found that “porcupines may occur in most major regions and habitat types across northern California, in contrast to many published range maps.” Of particular interest to those in the Black Range is the study’s assessment of porcupine occurrence by vegetation type. See results in graphic at left.
And lastly, see, “Where Have All the Porcupines Gone?” by Ellen Horowitz, Montana Outdoors, March-April 2015.
California Department of Fish and Wildlife (CDFW), previously published records (Yocom), Porcufinder.com (PF), the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), USDA Forest Service Natural Resource Inventory System (NRIS), UC Davis California Roadkill Observation System (CROS), and miscellaneous sources, including track plate detections, iNaturalist.com, and Flickr.com.
Coatis
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