WILDLIFE experts are warning parents to avoid the prickly problem of an unwanted, unusual pet by thinking twice before homing a hedgehog.
According to Northumberland Wildlife Trust an increasing number of North East people are purchasing a domesticated pygmy species of the cute and spiky creatures.
But quickly realising the animals are not as easy to care for as hamsters or guinea pigs many are being released into the wild – with potentially dire consequences.
Owner Emma Pearson, 26, who works for the charity, ‘rescued’ her African pygmy hedgehog Huffa after a five-year-old’s family decided they’d purchased the wrong pet.
“I got him after someone decided they didn’t want him,” said the Living Waterways project officer from Wear Street in Chopwell, Northumberland.
“He’s antisocial – he wakes up at 8pm and goes on his wheel all night. I think for many people pygmy hedgehogs are something of a fad pet, but when people decide they can’t look after them they are releasing them. Pygmy hedgehogs can’t live outside - they don’t put enough weight on to survive hibernation.”
As more of the mammals are being found abandoned, it is seeing an increasing number of calls to organisations such as the Pricklepad Hedgehog Hospital in Forrest Hall, Newcastle.
Carer Moira Simpson said: “I had a call a couple of weeks ago from a woman who had bought a pygmy hedgehog, but was moving into a flat where the landlord didn’t allow pets, so wanted us to take it in.
“I told her that we don’t take in pets, we help native British hedgehogs, and her reaction was ‘oh I’ll just release it into the wild then.’
“My concern is that if people do that then the majority won’t survive, but those that do could start breeding with the hedgehogs already there or it could end up like the situation we have with squirrels. Our own native hedgehog is facing extinction, but if you’ve another competing it will only get worse.”
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Thu Apr 19, 2012 12:56 pm
