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A review by pookykun
Ghosts in the Hedgerow: A Hedgehog Whodunnit by Tom Moorhouse
4.0
I decided recently to re-embrace my love for hedgehogs, a sort of moment I went through when I was seven, by reading about all the ways in which we are killing them.
The main thing I learned is...hedgehogs really like hedges! (Well, duh.) They provide shelter, warmth, and safe travelways. And for various reasons, we have removed massive swathes of hedgerows across the UK, leaving hedgehogs to try and survive in arid farmland, or else in urban areas, utilising gardens that are too often hard to get into, sometimes manicured to the point of uselessness, and also littered with potential hazards.
If I had a garden, I would make it a wildlife paradise and that would make me feel better about the state of things. However, as it is, I am depressed, and spend most of my time shuffling to and fro like a zombie--decaying, I suspect, intellectually and emotionally. Wait, what was I talking about? Gardens? Aah. I don't have one.
Moorhouse enjoyed hedgehogs being killed by traffic a little too much for my tastes, being at his most playful in his language when observing roadkill. It is fascinating and obscene. Apart from that (and from the narrative framing of various different factors being the True Hedgehog Murderer, personified and questioned by a golden-age style detective, which I'm sure some find useful but I just found distracting), it was a strong book that got better as it went on. I would recommend it to those interested in hedgehogs and/or ecological conservation in the UK and Europe.
"Hedgehogs...are fantastically adaptable, and within living memory were busily delighting people almost everywhere. When species like that begin to suffer, we absolutely must take notice. Because the causes can only be systemic, pervasive and severe."
The main thing I learned is...hedgehogs really like hedges! (Well, duh.) They provide shelter, warmth, and safe travelways. And for various reasons, we have removed massive swathes of hedgerows across the UK, leaving hedgehogs to try and survive in arid farmland, or else in urban areas, utilising gardens that are too often hard to get into, sometimes manicured to the point of uselessness, and also littered with potential hazards.
If I had a garden, I would make it a wildlife paradise and that would make me feel better about the state of things. However, as it is, I am depressed, and spend most of my time shuffling to and fro like a zombie--decaying, I suspect, intellectually and emotionally. Wait, what was I talking about? Gardens? Aah. I don't have one.
Moorhouse enjoyed hedgehogs being killed by traffic a little too much for my tastes, being at his most playful in his language when observing roadkill. It is fascinating and obscene. Apart from that (and from the narrative framing of various different factors being the True Hedgehog Murderer, personified and questioned by a golden-age style detective, which I'm sure some find useful but I just found distracting), it was a strong book that got better as it went on. I would recommend it to those interested in hedgehogs and/or ecological conservation in the UK and Europe.
"Hedgehogs...are fantastically adaptable, and within living memory were busily delighting people almost everywhere. When species like that begin to suffer, we absolutely must take notice. Because the causes can only be systemic, pervasive and severe."