I remember when I was a young kid, a friend of my father told me that porcupines were protected in most of the northern New England states, the upper midwestern states and several Canadian provinces. I never checked into it, but his story was that they were protected because they were the only mammal that a man in a survival situation could reliably kill without a firearm.
In most states these days, anything not classified as a game animal is protected unless it is specifically designated as a nuisance.
