Israel: Orphaned porcupine finds love with wild suitor
Zookeepers in Israel have uncovered evidence of a porcupine love affair between a captive female and a wild male, it's been reported.
Dorit the porcupine has been living at the Ramat Gan Safari Park in Israel for eight years, since being orphaned as a baby. Unable to survive in the wild, she lives alongside three eagle owls, but it seems she is also getting some porcupine affection by night, the Haaretz website reports. Staff were baffled when they found porcupine droppings outside her enclosure, and after a spiky creature was spotted on the other side of the wire, they feared the worst, thinking Dorit had made a break for freedom. A night-time camera proved otherwise. "The mystery was solved," the zoo says in a statement. "Dorit had a secret lover."
The camera footage showed a large male porcupine visiting Dorit each night for a few hours of one-on-one time, separated only by the enclosure's bars. Staff are surprised by his consistent interest because it isn't mating season, and they don't know how he gets into the safari park. "If he's hiding inside the park, he's doing it very efficiently," spokeswoman Sagit Horowitz tells Haaretz. The discovery has left them with a dilemma over whether to let the pair unite. In the meantime, the droppings keep piling up, suggesting that Dorit's male suitor hasn't lost interest yet.
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