Inquirer Editorial: Prickly topic

Even the most devoted of animal lovers cannot hug a porcupine. So why not shoot a few more of these literally unlovable creatures?

"Why not?" seems to be the sum total of the Pennsylvania Game Commission's rationale for legalizing the hunting of porcupines - which, with a top velocity of 2 m.p.h., are only a little more difficult to "hunt" than a bag of hammers.

The commission voted this week to inaugurate a seven-month porcupine season, backing down slightly from a proposal to declare year-round "open season" on the pointy, plodding rodents.

But wildlife experts and advocates have justly noted that there's little in the way of data or reasoning to back up the decision. In fact, it came off as so pointlessly bellicose that commission member and anti-porcupine activist Dave Putnam felt it necessary to demur, "We are not declaring war on the porcupine."

Putnam cited complaints about the animals' propensity to damage cabins, trees, cables, and more with their voracious chewing. He also acknowledged that one of the complainers was his brother. But the Game Commission could produce no more than four porcupine complaints over the last five years.

As the Humane Society representative and improbably named porcupine defender Sarah Speed pointed out, the commission has collected "no data whatsoever" on the porcupine population. Concentrated in the northern part of the state, the animals are thought to be multiplying and moving southward. But biologists say porcupine reproduction, like much else about them, is slow.

Moreover, though porcupines were protected from hunting, it was already legal to shoot any that were damaging property. So why declare a hunt? Putnam explained that he wanted to "eliminate the gray area" - and presumably, not to put too fine a point on it, quite a few more porcupines.