Maine Porcupine Gives Surprise Birth At Wildlife Center

Well, the staff there was surprised.  The porcupine?  Probably not so much.

A porcupine that has been residing at the Saco River Wildlife Center since mid February gave the staff workers there a little thrill this past week when it gave birth and they didn't even know it was pregnant.

By the way, did you know that they called a newborn porcupine a "porcupette?"  Well, they do.

Anyway, the mother porcupine whom the staff at the Saco River Wildlife Center creatively named after longtime television star Betty White, had been treated for a variety of different ailments including mange, ringworm and a cancerous tumor on it's back, and had been recovering nicely. Workers there were amazed at how well she now looked, as compared to when she first arrived.

Then recently someone at the Wildlife Center noticed that Betty's stomach felt hard, like there was some sort of a mass there, and staff members feared the worst, that cancer had returned.

A veterinarian with an x-ray machine was called in, and lo and behold Betty White was in the process of giving birth.  You can just imagine that there were plenty of midwife wannabees in the room to make sure that everything went well.

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Awwww, aren't they cute? Mama and her yet to be named (as far as we know) porcupette are doing very well, as you can see in the news video below.  The Saco River Wildlife Center will eventually release them together somewhere within the Maine wilderness to enjoy what we hope will be a long and very prickly life.