Maryland’s 65 North American porcupine records belong almost entirely to the far western mountains. Garrett County holds 25 and Allegany 14, with named records from Deep Creek Lake State Park, Dans Mountain Wildlife Management Area, and Big Run State Park, the forested high country where this northern species reaches the southern end of its Appalachian range.
A slow climber that eats bark
A porcupine is built for a life in trees, with curved claws, a muscular tail that props it against the trunk, and no need for speed, since some thirty thousand quills handle most predators. Through winter it lives on inner bark and evergreen needles, often feeding for days in a single tree, while the growing season brings it down for leaves, fruits, and the salt it craves enough to gnaw shed antlers and tool handles.
Spring births, quiet winters
Records stay thin from November through March, when porcupines den in rock ledges and hollow trees and move as little as possible between den and feeding tree. They climb from April through June, the season when females bear their single well-developed young, and a smaller September rise follows as animals travel toward winter denning ground.
Status in Maryland
The porcupine is treated as native to its Maryland range and is not listed as nonindigenous in the state by USGS NAS. It is not specifically listed under Maryland’s state-level conservation framework, and the IUCN lists the species globally as Least Concern.
Full species profile
