The unique animals – crested porcupines appeared in Feldman Ecopark. Four rodents already underwent veterinary control and all necessary medical procedures. Now new inhabitants are lodged in the spacious house – visitors will be able to see owners of the longest needles among mammals on the main path of the Regional Landscape Park, near open-air cages with a chimpanzee.
“In Ecopark porcupines appeared for the first time. Animals arrived within the program of free exchange of animals between zoos of Ukraine, – the veterinarian Feldman Ecopark Anna Zhukovskaya told. – The newcomers are very contact, but a little more uneasy as full adaptation to the new residence didn’t take place yet. In order that animals felt right at home, we provided them with the big open-air cage with the soft soil which has place for a vacation, eating, and digging of holes. And, of course, we try to feed them with the most favorite and useful: vegetables, fruit, branches, grass and grain”.
We will note that the natural habitat of porcupines is Southeast Asia, southern Europe, and also countries of Asia Minor and the Middle East. Besides, this animal can be met on Sri Lanka and in Indochina. The nature awarded porcupines with appearance, unusual to rodents, – huge black-and-white needles which can reach half-meter. Prickly wool helps porcupines to hold the fort against predators and to float. Porcupines are very resourceful house-builders: they dig holes to 10 meters in length, surely caring for that there were at least two exits from housing.
We will remind that in Feldman Eсopark live more than 2 000 animals, 120 from them – rodents. Eсopark is the active participant of the program of exchange of animals between zoos of Ukraine and receives those who appeared in difficult circumstances. The other day here sheltered more than fifty animals from the Dnieper zoo zone which was judged unsuitable for living at the moment.
