the hedgehog gods (snuffly, near-sighted, snail-munching, spiky little deities that they are) decided to give me a sign that they are not forsaking our neighborhood, in spite of recent events. yesterday evening, this fat fellow went bumbling past my kitchen window and into the garden of the vacant house next door.
yesterday after work, i went out to collect the emptied recycling and garbage bins from the roadside. the curbs are being redone on our street, so there were plastic jersey barriers lying around, and the grassy verge had just been mown. i noticed a hedgehog snuffling in the fresh grass clippings a little way up the street and went to have a closer look. he was alert and twinkly, but moving very slowly - his back paws dragged uselessly behind him, and his left foot was badly swollen. i gently rolled him into the recycling bin (kind of a deep plastic box) and brought him up to the house.
we had company coming for dinner, but i called the vet to see if they were still open, and was able to take the little hedge straight over. i had added a towel to the bottom of the bin and he poked around it on the way, twitching his pointy snout and scrabbling slowly with his front claws. i tried not to get too attached, though - hedgehogs are an exotic species in nz and considered a pest. but he was very cute.
it was as i expected - the vet kindly explained that the spca is not allowed to care for injured hedgehogs due to their pest-status, that his chances weren't good with the paralyzed back legs anyway, that he wouldn't feel any pain, etc. but it was very hard to see the needle slip into the small spiky body, watch the breathing get shallower and shallower and the bright eyes close. she asked if i wanted them to dispose of the body, or if i wanted to bury it, so i brought him home to the garden and dug a little hole under a shrub. i had been sniffling up to that point, but when i rolled the little round hedgehog into the ground, and felt the warmth lingering on the towel where he had been, and saw him curled on his back with his paws all tucked in as though he were napping, it was too much. his species may be considered a pest now, but that wasn't his fault, and who knows how long he was on the side of the road, probably hit by a car, before i found him. city life is dangerous for animals, and the innocent casualties always grieve me, even a little hedgehog i only knew for fifteen minutes.
