October 23, 2014

Watching This Porcupine Taste a Pumpkin Is Why the World Is Going to Be Okay Today


Imagine if we were all as happy as this adorable porcupine, enjoying the seasonal harvest with this much gusto. (You really need to wait until he takes his first bite—the sounds he makes are amazing). This video was posted to YouTube by Zooiversity, a traveling animal education company in Texas, last year, and appears to be enjoying an encore seasonal run this week, as the nation heads into full-on pumpkin madness. (H/t to the website Unwindly, where I first saw it).

Teddy Bear, an 11-year-old male North American porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum), is something of a YouTube star at this point, it seems. According to Zooiversity’s website, he’s raked in 11.5 million views from 16 viral videos and enjoys a following from over 19,000 Facebook fans. 

He’s even…a movie star. Yes. A movie star. According to Zooiversity, Teddy gave voice to Sebastian the hedgehog in The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey. He’s come a long way since his days as an abandoned newborn found by a rancher in West Texas.

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We just wrapped up a shorter-than-normal, urgent-as-ever fundraising drive and we came up about $45,000 short of our $300,000 goal.

That means we're going to have upwards of $350,000, maybe more, to raise in online donations between now and June 30, when our fiscal year ends and we have to get to break-even. And even though there's zero cushion to miss the mark, we won't be all that in your face about our fundraising again until June.

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