Hugh Warwick, The Guardian 19 Jun 08;
African pygmy hedgehogs are just the latest in a long line of trendy pets. But the history of crazes for animals that suddenly become fashionable points to a tragic ending. Hugh Warwick reports
Pet fads, by their very nature, come and go. Whether it is terrapins or Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, these fleetingly fashionable creatures cause perfectly normal people to act irrationally and irresponsibly. The terrapins are overfed and become as large as dinner plates while also developing a tendency to bite. Once-adorable pot-bellied piglets, meanwhile, end up as 28st adults dominating whatever is left of their exasperated owner's home.
So when I recently saw headlines such as "Must-have hogs" accompanying photographs of cute African pygmy hedgehogs, my heart sank.
As an ecologist specialising in hedgehogs, I have spent a lot of time with these creatures out in the wild, following them as they snuffle around their habitat through the night. I have met many people who have dedicated their lives to caring for hedgehogs that are sick or injured. But until recently I had not met anyone who kept them as pets. Then I attended the Hedgehog Welfare Society's biennial gathering in Denver, Colorado, and met some of America's hedgehog pet keepers. All I can say is, if we are to follow where they lead, some strange things are on the way.
In the early 1990s, the US experienced a fancy for hedgehogs, which, as always, soon faded from frenzy to low-level interest. But at its peak the craze supplied punters with the "must-have" pet of the hour. It also promised a rich return for anyone who bred the animals: an attractive breeding pair could be sold for more than $1,000. But some breeders pushed it too far and the intensive breeding that ensued led to the horror that is "Wobbly Hedgehog Syndrome", a nasty, heritable condition that affects the nervous system and does exactly what it says - hedgehogs start to wobble when they walk and eventually die.
But show us a picture of an African pygmy hedgehog and we go weak at the knees rather than worry about the pitfalls of ownership. A couple of months ago, many newspapers ran photographs of these irresistible hedgehogs accompanied by enthusiastic quotes from a UK breeder called Bonnie Martin about how the country's eight breeders couldn't keep up with demand. But when I spoke to Martin recently, she said she thought she had only given a quote to a small local newspaper and didn't realise it would be syndicated by a news agency and used across the country.
"It has worried the hell out of me," she said. "I have had hundreds of emails from people wanting to know where they can get the hedgehogs, many wanting to start breeding them. One asked for a male and three females, and could he have them fast as he did not want to miss out on this new craze."
This is the last thing that Martin wished to happen. She is well aware of the consequences of trumpeting the line that these are "must-have hogs" - it will ultimately lead to bored owners discarding unwanted hedgehogs.
"We are concerned," says Dr Ros Clubb, of the RSPCA's wildlife science department. "Back in the 1990s, our animal centres filled up with red-eared terrapins as a result of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle craze, and, anecdotally, there does appear to be a rising demand for more unusual and exotic pets. The main problem is that this sort of fad gives the impression that pets are something that can be bought on a whim. Many of these
animals have very specialist requirements and live for many years, so it can be disastrous for the animal."
Mutant turtles are not the only progenitors of a craze. No surprises for guessing what happened after 101 Dalmatians bounded on to the silver screen in 1996. Rescue centres also reported an increase in abandoned owls as Harry Potter fans began to realise what they had let themselves in for by getting one as a pet. And following the release of the animated film Ratatouille last year, the supermarket Pets at Home reported a 50% rise in demand for rats.
Juanita Wilson from the Mossburn Animal Centre near Lockerbie believes that it is the constant desire for something different that drives these fads. Her current concern is giant rabbits. "There is a pet supermarket near me that has just started selling them," she says. "Abandoned rabbits haven't started to filter through to me yet, but they will. They are just not suitable pets. Whenever there is something new in the pet shops, it is only a matter of time before I get them, dumped on the doorstep when it has proved too costly or too demanding or, most likely, the child that clamoured for it has got bored." The pester power of children is well understood and used to good effect by retailers. Animals are just another commodity to sell and therefore a demand needs to be created.
"Cynical marketing by greedy breeders and pet shops results in animal sanctuaries having to pick up the pieces," says Fiona Pereira, senior campaigns officer at Animal Aid. "If people really care, then they must shun this industry that treats animals as mere commodities. And if they really want a pet, they should go to an animal sanctuary and help them by re-homing one of their charges."
Some abandoned pets, however, actually thrive in their new wild habitat and go on to cause headaches of another sort. Last month, the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs announced that it is setting up a "special rapid response unit" to tackle invasive non-native plants and animals as they can transform habitats, damage eco-systems and threaten indigenous species. "Abandoned pets can become part of the invasive non-native fauna of this country," says a spokesperson. "Ring-necked parakeets and red-eared terrapins are good examples."
But if hedgehogs do emerge as the latest trendy pet, then in the UK we have a very different problem to any faced in the US - we are already naturally blessed with hedgehogs. This will lead to a unique set of problems. First, some traders will just scoop up these wild animals and pass them off as pets.
(Sadly, I have already started to hear stories of this happening.)
My other worry is that the existence of a superficially similar animal in the wild may allow the bored owner of an African pygmy hedgehog to think that they can just jettison their unwanted pet into the care of the wild. But to do so will kill them: African hedgehogs need to be kept warm, requiring a temperature of around 20C.
In fact, looking back at the history of faddish pets, I can find only one example that doesn't have a sad ending. They first appeared on the market in California in 1975 and swiftly made their "breeder", Gary Dahl, a fortune. And they were? Pet rocks, of course.
