Folks are starting to notice a rise in “prickle pigs” across their cities. A recent sighting in South Central Texas has left a few locals wondering if the bowlegged animals are stepping out of their natural habitat.
San Antonio native Veronic Manzi captured the rare moment she saw a porcupine creeping across the street on Tuesday, September 2. It happened late at night, she said, at around 7:34 p.m. near Grey Forest.
“They’re more common in Western Texas,” she captioned a social media video about the spotting.”
In a message to MySA, though, she added that there was “one on both sides of the road,” adding to the uncommon nature of the encounter. A couple of residents who were lucky to capture the pokey creatures recently also shared their encounters in the comment section.
“We had one near [the] Medical Center two days ago,” a user said on Friday, September 5. Another wrote, “I saw one in my neighborhood yesterday! Crazy.”
A majority of the animals, though “completely at home in a tree,” resided in the northern and western parts of the Lone Star State up until about 2016, the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department (TPWD) said. It was around that time that San Antonio and Austin natives began reporting an increase in sightings across their sides of town.
“Considering their increased spread across the state, outdoors writer Mike Leggett proposes that porcupines become our ‘state rodent,'” the agency said of the species.
Yet, they aren’t known to only waddle through bushes – or across a busy roadway.
“Preferences include rocky areas, ridges, and slopes, where crevices and caves provide den sites and large boulders serve as resting places,” TPWD said. “Flats, valleys, and gulches are not as appealing.”
With their large body, dark eyes, and vocal muttering sounds, they may appear intimidating to some, but these spiky visitors are not aggressive.
However, they won’t hesitate to approach you. In fact, they really want to.
“Led by their strong sense of smell, porcupines can be attracted to your musty, hand-rubbed canoe paddles or to backpack straps that absorbed sweat from your shoulders,” TPWD explains in a post. “Anything with the salty tang of perspiration acts as a porcupine magnet.”
Any murmurs are roars you hear upon their passing are not it trying to curse you out or a sign of distress, but rather, it’s their usual whine, and sometimes and often an indication that they are “sexually excited,” TPWD said.
When threatened, though, the animals’ needle-sharp quills do shoot up and are often accompanied by a swatting tail motion, a gesture it will do you good to respect. Researchers estimate they have more than 3,000 across each square inch of their skin.
Locally, their population has continued to rise over the last few years, the Texas A&M Forest Service said in a post on February 10, 2025.
What impact could they have? Well, the department warns their frequency can be “quite destructive” to trees, as porcupines enjoy feeding on the inner bark of red oak, sumac, and mesquite.
They also aren’t easy to tame. “If you come across porcupines damaging your trees, you can attempt to trap and relocate them,” the agency said. Meanwhile, TPWD encourages folks to take a different approach.
“Appreciate the porcupine from a safe distance and listen for its old-man grumble as it walks by,” the agency said.