How do you protect yourself from porcupines?

Answer 1

Quills are a porcupine's self-defense. An adult porcupine [Hystricomorpha subfamily] tends to be able to draw on about 30,000 quills. Specifically, porcupines suddenly turn their backs on predators, whom they then hit quickly in the face with their tails. The predators are left to deal with painful quills everywhere that they most hurt while the porcupine escapes.

The escape route is often up a tree, which serves as host plant and sleeping quarters for this herbivorous night-feeder of twigs, leaves and bark. Porcupine appetites may or may not be under control in terms of the particular woody home and food source.

A porcupine's eating of bark may do a gardener a service by revealing the presence of destructive bark beetles. At the same time, it may do a disservice by making available to similarly destructive critters the living portions by which the tree moves around soluble nutrients and photosynthetic products.

Answer 2

how to protect yourself is don't leave food out and don't have that many trees.