Utah police remove prickly intruder from Park City home


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PARK CITY — Felix Kishinevsky knew that porcupines lived in the trees and field outside of his house, as he had watched them from his kitchen window.

Thursday morning, however, Kishinevsky got an unexpected closer look at one of the porcupines as he was sitting in a recliner inside his son's room. Kishinevsky and his family came to face to face with the prickly intruder inside his Jeremy Ranch residence.

"He's right behind the recliner. Just walks out from the behind recliner right past me, has a look at me and says 'Good morning,'" he joked.

Kishinevsky and his family had just moved into their home in December. He said the back doors have not been fixed yet and don't always close securely. He believes the wind blew one of the doors open overnight.

About 4 a.m., the family's dog started barking. But when Kishinevsky couldn't find any problem, he assumed the dog had seen an animal outside and was reacting to that.

About 6:30 a.m., he went into his 1-year-old son's room to feed him. He sat down on the recliner in the room, and that's when the porcupine made its appearance. After walking out from behind the chair, the animal went under his son's crib.

Kishinevsky said the porcupine was calm most of the time, except when he tried to coax it out the door using a broom. When the porcupine sent a few quills into the broom, that's when the family called 911.

They expected animal control would respond, but soon found a couple of Summit County sheriff's deputies at their door. The deputies found the animal still "snuggled" under the crib. Kishinevsky noted that, at this point, the animal was sticking to the carpet like velcro and wasn't easy to move.

But in a relatively short amount of time, the deputies had moved the crib, grabbed a clear tote bin, and used a piece of plywood to coax the porcupine into the bin. The animal was then escorted from the house.

No one was injured, including the family dog, whom Kishinevsky is glad didn't get a chance to become more acquainted with the uninvited house guest.

The sheriff's office posted pictures of the deputies removing the porcupine on their Facebook page.

"Thanks for removing Porcu-bro from our house!!!" Kishinevsky commented online. "He's gotta learn to sleep off his late nights elsewhere."

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Pat Reavy interned with KSL NewsRadio in 1989 and has been a full-time journalist for either KSL NewsRadio, Deseret News or KSL.com since 1991. For the past 25 years, he has worked primarily the cops and courts beat.
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