Call by Mrs. Cristina Lapis, president of the Millions of Friends Association (AMP):
All these years, since the Millions of Friends Association is fighting for animal rights and making huge efforts to realize the importance of protecting the environment, I’ve dreamed of a world with no wild animals used as toys and used for the material profit of people who are deprived of consciousness, ethics and compassion.
I suffered a shock to see in a petshop a new ′′ attraction ′′ for clients ignoring everything about a wild animal. After hamsters, bunnies, chinchilles, birds, here we are selling hedgehogs now!
Protected by the 1981 Berna Convention, a hedgehog is not a pet!!! It is a wild animal whose habitat is the forest and sometimes the gardens, where they build nests from leaves and dried herbs.
His metabolism makes him sleep by day and hunt by night. It’s an omnivore and eats insects, snails, honey, dried fruits…
It hibernates in the winter winter, wakes up mid April and has a life expectancy of up to 7 years. It’s a noisy animal. When he gets angry he blows, spits, snarls and screams. When he feels a danger he turns into a ball of needles. It has up to 6000 needles on it’s body.
It’s an animal that likes to live in the family, along with other hedgehogs. It’s an important animal for maintaining ecological balance. Consume about 200 grams of larvae, cockroaches and other insects in a night!
25 % of hedgehogs die from pesticides, another 25 % are victims of circulation, and surviving reproducing very slow, that’s why their species is in danger.
Whoever has a garden can wake up one day with a ′′ spiky guest “. Watch him, don’t touch him, let him choose if he wants to stay in your garden and don’t prevent him from leaving. Maybe he has a family waiting for him.
I’m appealing to all those who love animals not to be tempted by the idea of buying a hedgehog from those who decided to earn money at all costs, going as far as reproducing hedgehogs in captivity to sell them. The hedgehog’s place is not in a house, on flooring, on tiles or in a dirt cage.
He needs freedom, like us humans!
Man’s destroyer intervention in nature, wildlife markets are associated with the spread of the new SARS-Cov2. virus.
′′ Protecting animals, we protect ourselves humans and we might have the chance to live in harmony with the nature that surrounds us ′′
