Hugh Warwick

This is a post dedicated to my hero Hugh Warwick. He is an ecologist-turned-journalist who has done a ton of work with hedgehogs. He has spent copious amounts of time tracking and studying them, as well as working for their relief efforts on Uist. He has written two books specifically about hedgehogs called A Prickly Affair: My Life With Hedgehogs and The Hedgehog's Dilemma. I have read the latter and loved it. I am even thinking of getting one of the hedgie illustrations from the book tattooed.

There is a slight sticking point, however. It would seem that Mr. Warwick disagrees or does not understand why hedgehogs are kept as pets. I can see his point about enjoying them in the wild or in one's garden, and it's true that they are not truly domesticated and retain their wild characteristics even when in captivity. Thing is though, I can't just pop outside and see one eating slugs off my vegetables because here in the US we simply don't have wild hedgehogs. I turn to my precious pet for hedgie love.

That said, I love his book and his website and his blog. He has a hedgehog blog too! One of his posts caught my attention in particular. Apparently the British governement wants to spend 97 billion pounds on big bad bombs, so in response there has been a website set up for people to post videos explaining what they think the 97 billion could be spent on instead. Mr. Warwick has added his own video explaining that even a cut of one millionth of that money could be used to do so much for hedgehogs. He points out that the world would be a much better place if we spent our money on life instead of death and destruction. Now fancy that. Here is the site.