In his famous work Parerga und Paralipomena, the philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer put forth the dilemma faced by a group of hedgehogs who need to huddle together in order to share one another’s body heat and thus better survive the cold. However despite their best intentions, the closer they get to one another, the more pain each one causes the others due to their respective spiny exteriors. This parable has, since Schopenhauer’s first publication of it, been widely used to explain the dichotomy of human relationships – how it is often the case that the more two people want to be emotionally close to another, despite their best intentions, they cannot but help increasing the amount of pain inflicted upon each other. However in Hugh Warwick’s The Hedgehog’s Dilemma: A Tale of Obsession, Nostalgia, and the World’s Most Charming Mammal, the situation is given a slight twist in that it is not the hedgehog that is wanting to be close to humans, rather it is the humans who are becoming closer to hedgehogs, either willingly or simply as a resulting effect of the human-caused changes on the natural world, and thus inflicting harm upon the hedgehogs – and quite possibly ourselves as well.
The species of hedgehog familiar to most of us (especially in the U.K.) is the European Hedgehog, Erinaceus europaeus, one of seventeen species of small insectivorous mammals grouped into the subfamily Erinaceinae. Often mistakenly thought to be rodents, they are actually more closely related to voles and shrews. Yet unlike these less beloved creatures, hedgehogs have captivated humans with their small size, curious natures, clever behavior, and “wind-up toy” manner of walking; truly, they may indeed be, as Mr. Warwick proposes in the book’s subtitle, nature’s most charming mammal. Hence their dilemma.
The European Hedgehog, as its name suggests, is a creature of hedgerows (as well as transitional field edge habitats). However due to some previous rather short-sighted land management practices in Britain, hedges are now becoming a thing of the past. With this change to the landscape, hedgehogs are struggling to adapt not only to the new and different terrain but with the other modifications to their world that such changes have brought, particularly dogs, badgers, and roads. Chronicling his studies into hedgehog populations in the English countryside, including the viability of returning injured or “fall orphan” hedgehogs (those born too late in the season to hibernate and thus collected and cared for through the winter by humans) back to the wild, Mr. Warwick depicts the challenges posed to these animals by a society that purports to love hedgehogs yet at the same time pursues changes to their habitat (mostly out of ignorance of their natural history) that may one day push them to extinction.
However Mr. Warwick does not only address the dilemma of the European Hedgehog alone. He also investigates and depicts the thriving hedgehog pet fad in the United States. Focused primarily on another species, the so-called African Pygmy Hedgehog (actually either the Four-toed Hedgehog, Atelerix albiventris or a hybrid of that species with the North African Hedgehog, Atelerix algirus), the market for these animals as pets saw a recent period of exponential growth in the U.S. Into this community Mr. Warwick ventured to discover what motivates people to keep these animals as pets as well as how some are working to clean-up the inevitable problems that occur when a large number of people suddenly decide to try to keep wild animals as in captivity. Fortunately, at the time of Mr. Warwick’s book being written, no significant problems with these African species being released or escaping into the wilds of either the U.S. or Britain have yet been recorded – however the emphasis must be placed squarely on the word “yet.”
As Mr. Warwick so eloquently explains, research into the life and habits of an animal that poses no commercial threat to human activities or cannot effectively be considered as a commercial resource (other than in the marginal pet market of the U.S.) is lowest on the priority list for funding by most institutions. Hence the hedgehog, beloved (thanks to Beatrix Potter’s Mrs. Tiggywinkle) by millions since childhood, is most at risk of being ignored into a precarious existence in its native habitat and objectified as a fad-driven commodity in a land far from its home. It is indeed hoped that this well-written and highly enlightening book will help many more people to come to a far better understanding of the hedgehog’s dilemma and the role we play in it.
Title: The Hedgehog’s Dilemma: A Tale of Obsession, Nostalgia, and the World’s Most Charming Mammal
Author: Hugh Warwick
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC (UK), Bloomsbury USA (USA)
Format: hardcover, 304 pages
ISBN-10: 1596914777
ISBN-13: 978-1596914773
In accordance with Federal Trade Commission 16 CFR Part 255, it is disclosed that the copy of the book read in order to produce this review was purchased by the reviewer.
