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A Prickly Affair
My Life With Hedgehogs
- Author: Hugh Warwick
- Category: Non-fiction Animals / Environment Other / General
- Publisher: Penguin (UK)/ Bloomsbury (US)
- Pub date: 30 October 2008
- Length: 288 pages
About A Prickly Affair
It is funny, generous, kind, learned… thoughtful, ecologically minded and – this is quite important, actually – unsentimental
- GUARDIAN
There is a hedgehog – Hugh’s hedgehog – about which nothing is known in Western scientific literature. No photographs, no data about breeding or diet; nothing. And there is a hedgehog obsessive, also called Hugh, who has been studying hedgehogs for 20 years.
It is about time that the two of them met. But the problem is that Hugh’s hedgehog, more formally known as Hemiechinus hughi, inhabits the Shaanxi Province of central China, while Hugh himself lives in Oxford. This is no straightforward journey, but there Hugh will travel in search of his namesake, by way of numerous other hedgehog obsessives, in a bid to answer the big question – Why?
Why is it that hedgehogs seem to have such universal appeal? And why was the humble hedgehog voted as the Environment Agency’s new icon, beating off competition from such apparently more charismatic contenders as otters, oak trees and bluebell woods? There is hardly a person who does not have a story about a hedgehog. Throughout the world there are people dedicating their entire lives to the welfare of this spiny bundle of fleas. Why?
The evidence collected shows that there is something special about the way in which we relate to this spiky bundle. But is this any more than just whimsy? Is there any value having a species as the focus of so much attention? Arguing that this attention is essential – that the hedgehog acts as a gateway to a broader understanding of the environment – A PRICKLY AFFAIR analyses the relationship between the hedgehog and humanity through meetings with hedgehog lovers around the world.
The little hedgehog has a big message.
About the Author
Hugh Warwick is an environmental writer and photographer. His work ranges from freelancing across the print spectrum, from BBC Wildlife and New Scientist to the Daily Telegraph – for whom he was unofficially hedgehog correspondent for a while – to radio documentaries for BBC Radio 4 and appearing as the ‘Eco-Worrier’ on Fred McAuley’s Radio Scotland show. He was also the field producer on Robert Greenwald’s film ‘Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price’. In addition, Hugh has studied hedgehogs, off and on, for over 20 years, and has most recently been responsible for stopping the great hedgehog massacre of Uist in the Outer Hebrides. He’s also spent months radio-tracking them around the West Country; searching the shingle beaches of Dungeness for their paw-prints in vain; and living under canvas when monitoring them on Ronaldsay and Uist.