Porcupine on the doorstep: surveillance camera catches special visitors

The Greve family from Herbern had an unusual nocturnal visitor. A surveillance camera recorded him: a porcupine.

2 mins reading time

2023-04-27 12:40:00

The Greve family from Herbern-Forsthövel set up a surveillance camera in front of their house. It was now recording an unusual nocturnal visitor. “Yes,” says Angelika Greve in an interview with the editors and laughs, “we actually had a visit from a porcupine.”

The representative of this family of rodents stopped by the Greves on the night of Wednesday 26th to Thursday 27th April. The flying visit to the focus area of ​​the camera was only brief, and the prickly animal quickly disappeared from view. Unknown if it continued to reside at the Greve Sanctum.

Camera triggers when there is movement

“The surveillance camera is aimed at our house entrance and set so that it turns on when there is movement,” says Angelika Greve. It was around half past midnight when the nocturnal animal entered the haze of the camera.

However, the Greves do not keep a porcupine as a pet and they do not occur in the wild in our latitudes either. “I suspect that it escaped somewhere and is hanging around here,” says Angelika Greve. Neighbors in Forsthövel would also have reported sightings of the animal.

Porcupines are found in parts of Asia, Africa and also southern Europe. They can grow up to a meter long. As the video shows, the Greves specimen is significantly smaller.

Probably erupted

Frank Holtrup has never heard of a free-roaming porcupine in his area. The Herberner is the contact person of the Nature Conservation Union (Nabu) for the Ascheberg area. He cannot say where the animal might have come from. Just this much: “They definitely don’t occur in the wild with us,” says Holtrup with a laugh. He has heard of rare birds before, “but I haven’t come across a porcupine yet.”

At the zoo in Hamm, when asked by the editors, they cannot make any sense of the nocturnal visitors in Herbern. “Our porcupines are all still there,” says zoo spokeswoman Verena Siewert in an interview with the editors, “fortunately.” She suspects that the animal has escaped somewhere, “because it doesn’t occur naturally in our latitudes”.

To their knowledge, the number of private individuals keeping exotic animals would increase. Then it could happen that they erupt. Siewert: “That is sometimes the case with kangaroos.” Maybe also with a porcupine.