Recently, a video of a young man from Neijiang, Sichuan, using cardboard to "borrow thorns" from porcupines has flooded the Internet. Netizens joked that "in ancient times, straw boats borrowed arrows, but today there are porcupines borrowing thorns." It is reported that,The young man returned to his hometown to start a business in porcupine breeding in 2009. He has been doing this for 17 years. At the peak, the number of porcupines reached 7,000, and now it has been reduced to more than 600.
After porcupines were included in the category of forbidden wild animals in 2020, he adjusted the breeding direction and focused on the medicinal and technological value of porcupine quills.
According to him, porcupine thorns can be collected once every six months, and a single one can produce 3-4 taels per year. The wholesale price of ordinary thorns is about 400 yuan/jin.The straight and round high-quality thorns are worth twice as much after processing. For example, they can be made into fish floats, and a single thorn can sell for as much as 268 yuan.!
In order to remove the quills efficiently and painlessly, the young man found an original method. He and his family used cardboard, grapefruit, foam boards and other items to lure the porcupines to actively shoot their quills, which does not harm the porcupines and can be easily collected.
These high-quality thorns need to go through multiple manual processes such as strict screening, candlelight straightening, grinding and cleaning, drilling holes and inserting tails, and painting and shaping, etc. before they can be made into fish floats. They have a hard texture, strong buoyancy, low water absorption, practicality and collection value, and are very popular among fishing enthusiasts.
In addition to fish floats, porcupine quills can also be processed into hairpins, combs and other handicrafts. At the same time, they are supplied to pharmaceutical factories as Chinese medicinal materials, forming a full-chain development model.
After the video shot by the young man became popular recently, it has been viewed more than 10 million times, and orders have continued to flow. Only ordinary thorn products sold at low prices can earn 1,000-2,000 yuan a day.
