Dr. Tim Bean

And Oldest Rose is like, because boys are peeing on their cabins. Wow. So all vertebrates need to maintain a one-to-one ratio of potassium to sodium. It's critical. Potassium and sodium ions are used in nerve and muscle cell function. And a lot of herbivores, plants, tend to be really high in potassium. And so herbivores...

almost universally face this problem of how do you get enough sodium to balance the huge amounts of potassium that you get through your diet. So yeah, porcupines are one of those, and they will seek out salt, sodium, wherever they can find it.

almost universally face this problem of how do you get enough sodium to balance the huge amounts of potassium that you get through your diet. So yeah, porcupines are one of those, and they will seek out salt, sodium, wherever they can find it.

almost universally face this problem of how do you get enough sodium to balance the huge amounts of potassium that you get through your diet. So yeah, porcupines are one of those, and they will seek out salt, sodium, wherever they can find it.

And Rose and a bunch of other people use salt blocks to attract porcupines so they could catch them.

And Rose and a bunch of other people use salt blocks to attract porcupines so they could catch them.

And Rose and a bunch of other people use salt blocks to attract porcupines so they could catch them.

Yeah. And he was saying it was like a shed outside of his cabin that he would just put these salt sticks out and porcupines from kilometers around, once they learned about it, would come in to take advantage. Yeah.

Yeah. And he was saying it was like a shed outside of his cabin that he would just put these salt sticks out and porcupines from kilometers around, once they learned about it, would come in to take advantage. Yeah.

Yeah. And he was saying it was like a shed outside of his cabin that he would just put these salt sticks out and porcupines from kilometers around, once they learned about it, would come in to take advantage. Yeah.

Yeah, no, it's totally real. And for rodents in general, like we deal with that with jackrabbits, like they're always chewing on various lines and stuff. And I'm not totally sure on the chemical composition for the underside of a car in general. But for porcupines, especially the further north you go, you know, cars are going to be covered in salt.

Yeah, no, it's totally real. And for rodents in general, like we deal with that with jackrabbits, like they're always chewing on various lines and stuff. And I'm not totally sure on the chemical composition for the underside of a car in general. But for porcupines, especially the further north you go, you know, cars are going to be covered in salt.

Yeah, no, it's totally real. And for rodents in general, like we deal with that with jackrabbits, like they're always chewing on various lines and stuff. And I'm not totally sure on the chemical composition for the underside of a car in general. But for porcupines, especially the further north you go, you know, cars are going to be covered in salt.

So like we distribute a lot of sodium on the roads and which is a problem for porcupines who are salt-driven in early spring, and it results in a lot of road kills. But I think that probably also is an attractant. If you're driving around and you get a bunch of sodium splashed up to the underside of your car, that's probably also attracting them.

So like we distribute a lot of sodium on the roads and which is a problem for porcupines who are salt-driven in early spring, and it results in a lot of road kills. But I think that probably also is an attractant. If you're driving around and you get a bunch of sodium splashed up to the underside of your car, that's probably also attracting them.

So like we distribute a lot of sodium on the roads and which is a problem for porcupines who are salt-driven in early spring, and it results in a lot of road kills. But I think that probably also is an attractant. If you're driving around and you get a bunch of sodium splashed up to the underside of your car, that's probably also attracting them.

We don't really know. And there's just not a really great funding source to study this at scale. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence from Western North America that they seem to be declining. There was a graduate student in Montana who set out to do her thesis on porcupines and then couldn't find any. And so her thesis kind of shifted gears there.

We don't really know. And there's just not a really great funding source to study this at scale. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence from Western North America that they seem to be declining. There was a graduate student in Montana who set out to do her thesis on porcupines and then couldn't find any. And so her thesis kind of shifted gears there.

We don't really know. And there's just not a really great funding source to study this at scale. There's a lot of anecdotal evidence from Western North America that they seem to be declining. There was a graduate student in Montana who set out to do her thesis on porcupines and then couldn't find any. And so her thesis kind of shifted gears there.

There just seems to be a bunch of people everywhere are noticing, there aren't as many porcupines as we used to see. And in New York, they've gone through a couple of scabies outbreaks, which is really horrible and awful for them and pretty devastating for the populations.