A man in the North Okanagan was distraught after discovering a porcupine corpse hanging from a road sign near Mabel Lake.
Greg Robinson shared a post to social media, on Thursday, showing a deceased porcupine hanging by a wire from a sign at the corner of Trinity Valley and Mabel Lake roads near the Valleyview Mobile Home Park.
“Trying to figure out why someone would hang a porcupine corpse from a sign,” Robinson said. “Pretty disgusting.”
It’s unclear how the porcupine was killed, but Vernon Conservation Officer Tanner Beck said given the porcupine’s roadside location there’s a good chance it was struck by a vehicle.
“I don’t know what the motivation would be behind (attaching it to a sign), but I would suspect if it’s on a road sign beside a road that the porcupine was probably killed by a vehicle,” Beck said.
When coming across an animal carcass on a road, Beck said to contact the road contractor to dispose of it properly.
Porcupines are fully protected under the BC Wildlife Act and can not be killed or trapped unless a permit has been issued. There are no hunting seasons for porcupines in B.C.
A spokesperson with the BC SPCA said no reports have been made to its officer in charge of animal cruelty investigations in the area but will contact the local RCMP to see if a police report was made.
Anyone with information is urged to call the BC SPCA call centre at 1-855-622-7722.
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