A porcupine might be the prickliest animal Jayson Biggins has had on his plane.
But it’s not the smallest — that distinction goes to a litter of kittens he flew from Salmon Arm.
The North Saanich pilot runs a volunteer wildlife rescue air service with his Cessna 172, and has flown feathered and furry freight for three years.
This month, he piloted the porcupine from Penticton to its home in Mackenzie, in B.C.’s northern interior.
The critter had been discovered in a Kelowna salvage yard, tucked under the pilot’s seat of a plane wreck that was recovered in the small town just north of Prince George.
She endured a helicopter, boat and truck journey as the wreck was transported south. Biggins leaped at the opportunity to fly her back to her home.
“It was amazing,” said Biggins, adding that the animal, affectionately nicknamed Mackenzie, was “so chill.”
“This is B.C.’s most famous, most well-travelled porcupine.”
It was his longest flight yet, with a canine rescue mission to Bella Bella coming in second. His shortest flights are ones between Victoria and Salt Spring Island, which he said take only eight minutes.
Biggins said that time is of the essence for a lot of his flights. “Being able to fly 160 kilometres an hour in a straight line gives these animals a pretty serious chance,” he said.
His biggest passenger by length was a bald eagle whose wingspan was almost seven feet. His heaviest load was a pair of large dogs from Port Angeles, he said.
Biggins moved from small-town Ontario to Victoria after seeing paragliders during a visit when he was 18, which captured his imagination.
Decades later, after a long career as a paragliding instructor, Biggins is still flying high, often dashing to his plane on short notice to fly throughout the province.
Since learning to fly in 2022, he has logged more than 1,000 hours in the air. Last summer, he retired from teaching paragliding to focus on his rescue project, called Big to the Rescue.
His wife, Natalie Foley, came up with the name, which fits both with his last name and his six-foot-five-inch stature.
Biggins said his involvement with wildlife rescue began when he lived on Salt Spring Island. While he was moving back to Victoria, he bumped into a woman on the ferry who ran a wildlife rescue centre, who told him the group was on the lookout for a volunteer to transport sick and injured animals.
When he received his pilot’s licence, Biggins got in touch with the woman and piloted his first-ever non-human passenger, a bald eagle.
Biggins said he rarely hears a sound from his passengers, adding that his headset is always on and the animals are often soothed by the ambient noise of the engine.
The couple is looking to get non-profit status for Big to the Rescue to make supporting the cause easier for its donors, who fund the fuel costs of his journeys but not yet his time.
He’s also looking to get his instrument rating so he can fly in limited-visibility conditions.
“I’m looking forward to Big to the Rescue getting bigger,” he said.
