If You're in a Parking Lot and See a Car Wrapped with Chicken Wire, Don't Leave Yours Without Doing It Too
It’s a lesson many of us learned only after high school: Following the crowd is often a bad idea.
But good rules of thumb always have room for exceptions, and when it comes to one particular outdoor trend, doing what everyone else is doing might be the smarter move for once.
The trend involves wrapping one’s car with chicken wire.
It’s possible, when going camping or backpacking, to see an entire parking lot of cars wrapped in the material.
Why are they wrapping around their cars with chicken wire mesh? pic.twitter.com/ci71MIbQYF
— Kaysparks (@Kaysparks_) December 10, 2024
The reason?
Porcupines.
And they pose a potential safety concern to unsuspecting outdoor enthusiasts and their vehicles.
“If you’re leaving your vehicle overnight in an alpine or sub-alpine zone, you need to porcupine-proof it,” according to West Kootenay Hiking, an online hiking resource for Canadian adventurers.
“Porcupines are nocturnal creatures who like to chew rubber. Nom nom nom. Tires? Yum. Brakes? Yes, please! Radiator hoses? What a treat!” the site added.
“Protecting your car is easy. Wrap chicken wire or hardware cloth around the bottom of your vehicle and secure it with sticks and stones, making sure there are no gaps for porkies to crawl underneath,” the site continued.
“Popular parks like Kokanee Glacier Park have rolls of chicken wire available at the trail head. But if you’re not sure, best bring your own. Some things just aren’t worth taking the risk,” the public service announcement read.
The decades-old practice of wrapping cars in chicken wire is especially common in British Columbia, Canada, in places like Kokanee Glacier Park, where the porcupine problem is increasingly worsening, according to The Spokesman-Review in Spokane, Washington.
But it happens here in the United States as well.
A 2011 forum thread dedicated to the subject revealed it is a legitimate concern in Colorado.
“Castle Creek was the worst I’ve encountered for porcupines,” one user wrote. “We car camped there before getting some fencing (instead of chicken wire we purchased some coated 36″ rabbit fence..it is sturdier and doesnt scratch the car) and were woke up every 20 minutes by one of those sneaky basterds.”
“FYI, I ordered some coyote urine once….I would not recommend it (maybe the pellets are better)….dealing with liquid coyote urine is like dealing with radioactive waste,” the user wrote.
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