Skiers nimbly dodged a porcupine as he wallowed through deep snow to cross Alta’s ski slope. Some stopped to watch the prickly fellow tumble into a tree well and then start to climb. That’s all there was to see. The show was over. He was as prickly as the evergreen so his camouflage was perfect. He virtually disappeared.

But porcupine puns spiked when someone asked: “Why did the porcupine cross the trail?”

“He was looking for love,” said one.

“There was no point to staying where he was,” said another.

And the jokes continued …

“Something was needling him.”

“Because he didn’t want anybody to get stuck waiting for him.”

“He pined for a different tree.”

“Needle-less to say, to get to the other side.”

“His friends kept calling him slow-poke.”

“Where there’s a quill there’s a way.”

Most rodents don’t get such laughable attention. Do you have a porcupine pun to add?

Looking down from a chairlift, porcupine tracks are easy to identify. Tracks look like they were made by a tiny snowboard. Porcupines can weigh 12–35 pounds, and their quills detach easily if touched. They’re the third largest rodent in the world after the beaver and South America’s capybara. Porcupines crave salt, and when we lived in New England they were known to eat outhouse toilet seats for traces of salt left by human bottoms. And to get road salt they’d chew the tires off hikers’ cars parked overnight at remote trailheads.