ANCHORAGE, Alaska (AP) - Alaska drivers know to be watchful for moose darting into traffic.
But their cars are a threat to a smaller animal that likes to amble across the road: the porcupine.
A Fish and Game Department fact sheet says the porcupine may be the most common roadkill in Alaska. It lists vehicles as one of only two threats to the slow-moving animals, Alaska Dispatch News reported (https://bit.ly/1Ip33sK).
The Sterling Highway last weekend was packed with bumper-to-bumper traffic last weekend, with bloody, quilled carcasses lining the road.
“What you saw along the Sterling Highway is probably not unusual for that region,” Fish and Game spokesman Ken Marsh said. “Over the last 40 years, I have also observed what sometimes seems to be a disproportionate number of road kill porcupine along the Sterling Highway.”
He chalks that up to two factors: an ideal porcupine habitat nearby and increased traffic headed in both directions for the sockeye salmon run and dipnet fishing.
Fireweed lined the highway last weekend. It grows well along roadsides and its emerging shoots are a favorite of the porcupine.
It’s not clear how these accidents affect the overall porcupine population, according to biologists.
Marsh said former Anchorage-area biologist Jessy Coltrane, who studied porcupines, once said, “Obtaining population data on a small nocturnal creature that often dwells obscured in trees is nearly impossible.”
And Fish and Game officials don’t track exactly how many of the critters are killed by vehicles each year, said Marsh, but they assume the porcupines are getting the worst of it.
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Information from: Alaska Dispatch News, https://www.adn.com
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