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latebloomer
07-23-2006, 14:04
For all you who use tents for shelter, what do you do when you encounter snakes or porcupines or other crawly things? Do they sense a human and not nose around your shelter? What should one do when encountering a salt-seeking porcupine, whether in a tarp or a 3-sided shelter?

general
07-23-2006, 15:02
i let the dog eat em'

seriously, most animals will avoid human contact, and the ones that don't mind me don't want anything to do with the dog.

slingblade
07-23-2006, 15:21
Grab your camera. I have come across one (porcupine) in my life and he seemed to care less that I was there. Snakes? I have encountered thousands and been bitten once due to some PBR influenced curiosity which was of course my own fault.

Toolshed
07-23-2006, 16:09
Only came across a porky once it was chewing away at the plywood operator shack at teh top of a Ski Resort mountain in Mid july. We watched it for about an hour. He could care less about us.
Had lenty of mice run over me in Lean-to's and shetlers over the years, have only seen eastern diamondbacks in PA,but plenty of non-venomous snakes are around.
otherwise, it's more the mosquitoes and black flies that bother me.

Spock
07-23-2006, 20:18
You are more likely to find snakes and porkies at shelters and heavily used campsites. The snakes come for the mice and porkies come (as you note)for salt. Porkies gnaw up anything that gets sweat or salt on it... tool handles, canoe paddles, pack straps, hip belts, table seats, privies and so on. But they learn to do that by accident and habit. If you are camped out in the woods as opposed to a frequently used campsite or shelter, the likelihood of a porkie finding your stuff is pretty low. If one comes around, just throw rocks. They move along when made unwelcome. Ain't no porkie gonna come git you. And they can't "throw" their quills. Same thing with snakes. They are afraid of people and avoid folks when possible. Even poisonous snakes are relatively helpless things and can be pushed away from your camp with a hiking pole or (long) stick. A snake that does not move readily is probably shedding and consequently temporarily blind. You have to get them started in the right direction or they may seem to go aggressively where you don't want them to go. It's just blind panic on their part. But they are pretty easy to steer. Sometimes big rattlers and cottonmouths will stand their ground for a while. They don't like to 'turn their backs' on you. Once you get them moving away, they often will watch you over their shoulders with what can only be called a reproachful scowl.

fiddlehead
07-23-2006, 22:10
You'll be lucky if you see a porky
Do you know anyone who's ever been bitten by a snake?

corentin
07-23-2006, 23:53
I was...but it was my own fault, I was eight and I picked it up by the wrong end.

Blue Jay
07-24-2006, 12:22
For all you who use tents for shelter, what do you do when you encounter snakes or porcupines or other crawly things? Do they sense a human and not nose around your shelter? What should one do when encountering a salt-seeking porcupine, whether in a tarp or a 3-sided shelter?

I have spent over two years total sleeping in tents. Have not had either one nosing around. You can worry about something else.

rainmaker
07-24-2006, 22:38
On the other hand, I've heard it said that wild animals can smell fear in humans. So, "be not afraid".

rickb
07-25-2006, 06:13
I have spent over two years total sleeping in tents. Have not had either one nosing around. You can worry about something else.

Yea, Like skunks!

Still its best not to leave your salty shoes laying out at night for the porqupines in MA and VT.

Spock
07-25-2006, 20:02
Yeah, shunks. A skunk highjacked a whole bag of cookies from me one at a time. I got a few of them - in between the skunk's demands. When the cookies were gone, he licked the bag clean and then took two tries to get over the lip of the tent door.

fiddlehead
07-27-2006, 20:38
If your looking for things to worry about, when i first started hiking, i would put my shoes outside my tent, well a coyote came one night and took one of them. It took me over an hour to find it about 200 metres away. I never put them outside again. (we knew it was a coyote from it's tracks. )
so, you can worry about all kinds of things. Most of them will turn out to be pointless. but other things that you never thought of might come up. Just hike! don't worry

HIKER7s
09-25-2006, 09:10
Had to add onto this thread with this one.

Have a camp-house up in Tionesta Pa, this past weekend me and my cousin were out spotting deer and were saying how long its been since we've come across a porky. Well over the course of about the next ten minutes we saw three along the road (this is backwoods country) .

The next day we saw another two up on the hard-grade road that had been hit and then later that night there was another one behind camp we saw knawing on something in the woodpile.


Funny looking creatures, them 'pines