MINOT, Maine — A man in Maine got more than he bargained for when he retrieved a porcupine hit by a car from the road.
The female animal was dead, but the baby she was carrying was not.
Jared Buzzell says he was recently driving with a friend when they saw a car hit a porcupine in Minot, Maine.
Jared’s uncle had told him about a valuable mineral porcupines make called a bezoar stone, used in Chinese medicine.
When he realized the porcupine was dead, Jared says he cut it open to search for the stone. Instead, he found something even more surprising – A live baby porcupine.
“(I) cut the sack open and out fell the porcupine,” he says. “Cut the umbilical cord, put it in a hat. We thought it was dead, then I started massaging it and all kinds of stuff starting coming out of its lungs so it started breathing.”
Now, in Jared’s apartment, he’s hand-feeding a baby porcupine every two to three hours with his daughter’s baby doll bottle.
Once the little guy gets a bit stronger, the family plans to hand him off to a licensed wildlife rehabilitator… maybe.
Jared’s wife said she’s interested in keeping the animal for good.
