- Porcupines do not shoot their quills.
There's no pew!
Quills shooting out in your eyes and your face!
Like, that doesn't happen.
- But it does make that sound.
- It absolutely makes that sound!
♪ Fire, a fire on the mountain ♪
(upbeat fiddle music)
What's going on, Coyote Pack?
And welcome back to base camp.
You guys wanna see something super cool?
Check this out!
Coyote Pack fan art, whooo!
- Yeah!
- These are awesome!
You guys listened, you started sending in art.
Big thank you to Emily,
a brave member of the Coyote Pack,
for sending in these pictures
that really look a lot like us!
Mario, what do you think?
- That's me!
- Absolutely, that definitely looks like me, and you?
- Pretty good!
- Man, the hat's a spot-on match right there?
- I know, right?
- Super cool!
- Now, weren't you supposed to hang these today?
I though you had chores, and Mario cleaned the room,
I got the cameras ready.
You were supposed to hang these.
- I thought it'd be cool to just hold them up,
or maybe we could tape them to our faces
for the entire episode and kinda be characters.
- Nah. - Maybe not.
- Not so much? No?
Okay, well, let's put these down.
We will hang them up on the wall, Emily.
Thank you for sending them.
But right now, let's dive into an episode.
As you know, Base Camp is the series where we dissect
old videos on the Brave Wilderness channel.
So if you guys are ready,
I got a good one lined up for today.
- Okay. Where we going to?
- We're gonna start where the pain started.
- Ooh!
- People always wanna know,
Coyote, where did all this pain and agony begin?
You guys know what I'm talking about, right?
- I think in Montana, if I remember correctly.
- Mario, you remember this spiky little creature, right?
- [Mario] I do, yep!
- We're gonna go back and watch the video
where I was quilled by
the North American porcupine.
- I'm Coyote Peterson and that...
- [Coyote] Yes you are!
- Is the North American Porcupine!
- [Coyote] Yes it is!
- As you can see
- [Coyote] And he's got to leaf, looks very content.
- [Mark] Very meaningful commentary
you're contributing right now.
- [Coyote] Yes, I'm very good at analyzing
like what's right there on the screen.
- [Mario] This is our opening animation.
- [Coyote] Those are animal tracks, kids,
and that's a boot track.
- [Mark] I can really see why people watched this.
- [Coyote] Oh yeah. Oh there's me pumping gas.
- [Mark] But wait, we don't let you drive.
- [Coyote] That's a really fast shot.
- [Mark] We don't let you drive or really pump gas.
- [Coyote] Nah, that was actually being done
for a sponsor wasn't it.
I didn't know you could tell that I was pumping gas
in that shot.
- That's a cool shot though.
- [Mark] You got that. - [Coyote] Yeah.
Oh, there's the selfie stick.
Making a little Montana appearance.
- [Mark] Is that a new selfie stick or is that?
- [Coyote] It is.
- [Mark] What is your process with the selfie stick?
- [Coyote] Well it's all about finding
a new unique stick in every location
to put the GoPro on.
- [Mario] They're pretty rare these sticks.
When you're in the forest, there's not very many of them.
- There are many sticks in the forest
but only that one is unique to being a selfie.
- Okay and then do we keep it,
do you take it with you back,
or you just leave it back in the wild?
- No, I donate it to the environment
so that it can decompose
and become one with the world.
- I thought you always put it back with its family
so it wouldn't be sad.
- And there's a little bit of that too
but now I'm starting to bring them home with me,
we're going to be selling them
on the brave wilderness store, BraveWildernessstore.com,
guys just go out of there and you will see a great variety
of State Woodland sticks
- I told you like--
- We're not doing that?
- This is like false advertising.
- Damn, I forget, bad memory.
What can I say?
Well, maybe at some point
we'll make an artificial selfie stick,
but now let's get back into this porcupine.
Look at that little eye.
You can see the determination in his eyes to quill me,
that's what I saw.
- [Mark] I don't think it had that in mind that day.
- [Coyote] Oh, you can see, there's a lot of disdain
for Coyote in that cute little beady eye.
- [Mark] You know, when you look at the porcupine,
it doesn't really look that spikey.
It kind of looks fluffy, like you want to cuddle it.
- [Coyote] Maybe that's the mistake
that a lot of people make when they get quilled
by porcupines is that they cuddle them.
- [Mark] Maybe.
Now are porcupines fast?
Like if you, is there a chance you could actually
get quilled?
I know dogs get quilled.
- Yeah, let's talk about that for a second.
No, porcupines are not fast, correct?
- No, but they do have a defensive mood
so if they get cornered by a predator,
they can either rear up or they'll kind of
put their bum in front of them or behind them
to face the predator, and they might do little charges.
- Like aah, get away from me?
- Yeah, exactly. - Intimidation.
- And just so it's clear, because this is a huge misnomer
that we are trying to disprove in this episode,
porcupines do not shoot their quills.
There's no pew, quills shooting out in your eyes,
in your face!
Like, that doesn't happen.
- But it does make that sound.
- It absolutely makes that sound
when you activate the guard hairs, pew.
It's got like lightning bolts and stuff like that.
But no, you have to activate the guard hairs
on the porcupine for it to...
- Yeah, it's actually just a very responsive move
from the porcupine, it just happens.
- Right, that's what you call a rump, right?
Or booty, bum, whichever?
- The bum. - The porcupine's behind.
Well, it's not actually like his butt
where his poops come out, it's like the back of it,
like the back of his tail.
(makes whipping noises)
For real, alright, here we go.
- Trumped only by its aquatic cousin the beaver,
- [Coyote] Ooh, this is cool, look at this.
Hold on, wait for the shot coming up here.
Yeah, the claws, talking about the claws, right?
Look at that, what? - Pretty cool.
- Mario, this thing looks like it's related
to the badger, but is it?
- No, it's not, as you mentioned it is a type of rodent
and in North America we have several rodent species
with the porcupines being the second largest,
first being the beaver,
but what about the world's largest rodent?
- The ROUS. - The what?
- Rodent of Unusual Size. - What's that?
- From Princess Bride, haven't you guys seen that movie?
- No. - What?
- I think it's the capybara?
- Yeah, capybara, correct.
- Is it cappy-bear-uh or cappy-barr-uh?
- Either one.
- Potato potato? - Sure.
- Tomato tomato, can be either one.
- But what about the giant rat in the Princess Bride?
That thing is huge.
- I don't know what movie you're talking about.
- You've never seen the Princess Bride?
Have you?
- No, I mean, Master Splinter in the Ninja Turtles--
- Now that I know, there we go.
- Now Master Splinter, he is a wise rodent,
but if you guys haven't seen the Princess Bride,
definitely check out that movie,
has a giant rat in it, that was my favorite part.
It's actually pretty scare, you're gonna want
to check that one out.
Those claws are impressive.
- What they do is exactly this, show the rump side--
- [Coyote] Rump side, that's a technical term, right?
Scientific? - [Mario] Sure.
Posterior, rump side.
- [Coyote] Today my goal is to intentionally get quilled
by a porcupine.
Yes, you heard me right,
I'm going to get quilled by a porcupine.
- So let's talk about why.
- Yeah, why not?
- Why get quilled by a porcupine?
Well, at the time of the making of this video,
I think it was our third production trip,
how to videos were like the most popular videos
at the time, so we thought well, how can we join
the how to club, what can you do, how to?
- Yeah, I wanted to be part of the club.
- And being in Montana, we were seeing pictures
of peoples dogs that were being quilled and we were like
well, that'd be really interesting to show people
how to remove a quill.
Clearly we're not going to have a dog get quilled
for the video, but Mario was like
maybe if we go to the store and get a turkey leg
and get it quilled...
- No, there was none of that.
(laughing)
We didn't think of that idea
until the alligator snapping turtle.
- You offered your hand.
- I did. Cause, you know, I'm not a dog, I'm a coyote,
I got a paw, so let's put a human hand into the experiment
and see what happens.
- So the whole intention of the video is education.
What do you do if you're quilled or your pet is quilled
and how do you remove it?
- And how to remove it properly,
because most people don't know the proper way to do it.
- Bingo.
- And most people don't get intentionally quilled.
- [Coyote] No, they don't.
- [Coyote] These painful, barbed quills from either yourself
or in most cases from the snout of your curious pet.
- [Mario] Now most people who are quilled by porcupines
are people who handle them frequently.
- [Coyote] Yeah, who are these people?
I was gonna say you can't just go out
into the wilderness and get quilled by a porcupine,
you have to really work to get quilled.
- [Mario] Now a dog or a pet, that makes sense,
but a person?
- [Coyote] Cause dogs are curious, they're like
let me sniff this thing's butt,
cause that's what dogs do, and then you get close
and then whack, nose full of quills.
- In the face, that would be pretty bad.
- [Coyote] Of course getting quilled in the face
would be bad, did I even need to make that statement?
- [Mario] Potentially dangerous.
- [Coyote] Go right in your eyeball.
- [Coyote] I love how I get myself in these things.
- [Coyote] At first it didn't want to quill me,
and then, ooh, there it is.
Happened so fast, can't even see it.
- Can we see it one more time with the sound effect?
We should've had the sound effect.
- You ready for this?
- I love how I get myself into these things.
One, two, (pew)
(laughing)
- [Coyote] Boom, hand full of quils.
- [Mario] That's what this video's missing all along.
- [Coyote] Just that might've gotten millions of more views
if I had put in my sound effect, what can I say?
- You see how deep those are in my hand?
- Yeah, right there, ow.
- That was a bad day for Coyote right there, guys.
Those things went in a lot deeper than the rest of them.
- So let me ask you before we get into
the ones that really went far in,
what was the initial reaction like?
You get quilled, first thought?
- Why? - Well...
You should've been thinking about that
before you got quilled. - I know.
- But was it like way worse than you thought?
- No, only those two quills.
- The one quill that's really bad, you'll notice,
almost all the black side of the quill is inside your hand.
- Yeah, that was a deep one.
In fact, it was so far into my finger, it hit a nerve
and put my hand into a state of paralysis
for the remainder of the scene until I got the quill out.
- Which, as you'll see here, took a while.
- [Coyote] Yes.
- [Coyote] I think they touched bone.
- [Mark] It touched bone, you hear that?
Did it really touch bone?
- [Coyote] I dunno, I might've been making it up
in the moment but I'm pretty sure it did.
- [Mark] Yikes. Gosh, there were so many more quills
than I ever would've thought would come out
of the porcupine, I thought you were gonna get
like five quills.
- [Coyote] To be honest with you,
it could've been a lot worse too.
That was a warning swipe from the porcupine,
he was just agitated because he was trying to get leaves
and he was like stop bugging me,
and then he finally quilled me.
It was pretty bad.
Let's pause it here real quick before we actually get into
me removing the quills, because we had a lot of people
write in on the comments section
from the original video, saying no no no,
this is not the right way to remove quills.
Yes guys, it is.
We talked with experts, specifically people
who work with porcupines on how to remove quills.
So I feel like the advice that they gave us
is the right advice.
Now if you get quilled or your dog gets quilled
and those quills are in deep and you clip off
the tip of the quill and it's so deep
you can't pull it out, that would be the wrong thing to do,
but if you notice, I clip only the top of the quill.
Now when you do this, it releases the pressure
that's built up in there, then you can grab it,
twist it, and gently pull it out.
- And it is true, because some of the quills
that had fallen out on the side, we had actually tested
this before removing them, we took one
and tried to break it and you could feel
how much pressure was in it.
Then we clipped it and it became very pliable.
- Right, there's pressure, there's air inside of them
so when they insert into your hand or your dog's snout
or whatever, they expand as soon as they release
the body of the porcupine.
- Now of course, you might also want
to get medical attention, so this is a last resort
if you're out in the field by yourself
and need to get it out quickly.
- This is for emergencies only.
If your dog takes a face of quills,
if you get quilled really bad, always go to a vet,
always go to a doctor, at all costs.
This is only in the worst case scenario.
- We couldn't take Coyote to a vet at the time.
- I didn't have my rabies shots yet or my collar.
- Yeah, you would've ended up in the pound.
- I would've, that would've been bad,
we would've not been able to make any more videos, right?
- It's not gonna work, it's got microscopic barbs
on the end, and one of the cool techniques
of the porcupine quill is that once it's in there,
it works deeper and deeper and deeper.
- [Coyote] And that's honestly what happens
when people don't realize that being quilled
by a porcupine can actually kill an animal,
so a mountain lion or a wolf or a coyote that's the animal
or something like a grizzly bear, if it's quilled
by a porcupine, even something as big as a grizzly bear,
if it gets quilled in the snout,
those quills will keep digging in,
an infection can set in, the bear could lose its eye,
and eventually that animal dies.
- [Mario] Correct.
- [Mark] I've also heard that the fragments
can work their way to the heart as well.
- [Coyote] I'm gonna remove the ones
that aren't as deep first...
- [Coyote] Start simple, it's like taking off a bandaid.
- [Mark] You can tell some of those are barely in there.
- [Coyote] And again, this is not a porcupine
that was defending itself against being eaten,
this was a porcupine that was giving me a warning swipe
saying trying to eat my leaves, move on, buddy.
- [Coyote] ...these animals wouldn't be able to go out
and then continue hunting.
I can see why eventually this could cause a large predator
like that to die.
My hand hurts.
- [Coyote] Yeah, it did create this tingling sensation
and my hand got pretty swollen afterwards.
Almost like the troya cactucs, where I put my hand
in the troya cactus, it was a similar sensation,
just all those little puncture marks.
It's like the wrong form of acupuncture.
- [Mario] Here's some...
(grunting)
Ooh, good sound effect there.
First blood.
- Jeez, that hurt.
You can see the blood pouring out now.
(nervous laughing)
- [Coyote] That's not exactly a leech bite,
but that's pouring out of there.
One tiny little drop.
- [Mario] It's a real gusher.
Better get the trauma kit.
- [Coyote] My solid multitool, always comes in handy.
(disgusted grunting)
That one was the worst right there.
- [Mark] That makes me uncomfortable still, yikes.
- [Coyote] I know a lot of people watched this
and wrote in the comments section
that they were like cringing.
You can almost hear the quill pull out of my skin.
- [Mario] Like, oh man. - [Mark] Velcro it.
Now did you keep those as a souvenir?
- [Coyote] I did actually put them in my backpack
and I ended up losing them,
I don't know what happened to them.
They were contaminated anyways.
- Do not get quilled by a porcupine.
- [Coyote] Obviously that's good advice,
do not get quilled by a porcupine.
I wonder what would've happened if I was like
"hey kids, go out there and cuddle a porcupine."
You guys probably would've done it.
Don't go cuddle a porcupine, bad idea.
- We'll see you on the next adventure.
- [Coyote] He's like yep, gotcha.
- [Mark] So this video almost wasn't released.
- It really wasn't, once I started editing it together,
the light was bad, the shots were decent,
you really couldn't see how well I was quilled
in that moment.
Obviously the quills were in my hand,
but once it was all put together, we said,
well, we might as well still put it out there.
And lo and behold it came one of the most viewed videos,
still to this day is one of the most viewed.
- I think it was our first viral video on the channel,
and really the first video where we experimented
with the concepts that were outside the general
go search for wildlife and present them to the camera.
So we go back and we watch these videos,
do you ever think to yourself man,
I'd like to go back and do that again?
- No. There is no point in time that crosses my mind
where it's like maybe I should quilled
by a bigger North American porcupine.
- South African porcupine.
- Not gonna happen, the South African porcupines
have quills like this.
- What do you guys think?
- No, we don't care what you guys think.
I am not gonna get quilled by anything else,
I am done with the quills, that's one and done right there.
- Smart, you learn.
- And what I learned is that you should always admire
porcupines from a safe distance, so I don't care
who you are, if you're out there wandering around
in nature or you got your dog with you
or your little brother with you,
don't get close to a porcupine.
Simply admire it from a safe distance.
- Life advice from Coyote Peterson.
- There you have it.
Well, I am Coyote Peterson.
- [Mark] And I'm Mark Vins.
- [Mario] And I'm Mario DeCoa.
- [Coyote] Be brave!
- [Both] Stay wild!
- We'll see you on the next Base Camp adventure.
Guess we should hang these up on the wall now.
Hey, Coyote Pack!
I have some exciting news!
I am proud to announce that the crew and I
are headed back on tour with Brave Wilderness Live!
Our next shows take place in the midwest!
Tickets can be purchased at the Brave Wilderness website
and these shows are certain to sell out,
so make sure that you reserve your seats today.
And don't forget, subscribe, so you can join me and the crew
on our next big adventure!
I'm Coyote Peterson, be brave!
(audience cheering)