Hedgehog rescue

Last Friday night, after I saw a play put on by unemployed people over age 55 about how they take a trip to Mars in order to find happiness, I had a conversation about hedgehogs (typical, right?).

The prickly little guy... the word for hedgehog in German is Igel

My American friend Renee and her German friend Caro were telling me about how it is the time of year that hedgehogs need to be getting fat and settling in for the winter. They explained that if you see skinny hedgehogs you need to feed them, but after another week or two it will even be too late for that. Skinny hedgehogs need to be rescued.
"Rescued? Why?" I ask. "Aren't they wild animals?"
Renee and Caro proceeded to tell me that if the hedgehog tries to hibernate without adequate fat, it will die over the winter. And then...
I am waiting for the punchline... Maybe if a hedgehog dies it will haunt your house for years as a prickly little ghost, or it will release a poisonous gas, or it will at least wreck the food chain...
But no. Hedgehogs should be rescued because they are cute.

So what you are supposed to do, and apparently some people actually do this in Germany, is take the hedgehog inside. You are supposed to pick it up, take it in your house, or your cellar, or your garage, put it in a box for the winter, and feed it cat food. They also eat chicken and scrambled eggs. In the spring, you can release them again.
If you find a skinny or injured hedgehog you can also take it to the hedgehog rescue center, in case you don't want it (and its ticks and fleas) hanging out in your living room.

I hate to sound like a mean rodent-hating American, but, so what? Shouldn't we just let nature take its course? Yes, hedgehogs are cute. I get it.
There are no rodents from my former life that I can imagine wanting to take inside for the winter. How about a family of racoons? Maybe some squirrels, or a possum? That would certainly lead to ransacked trash cans, torn curtains, and broken dishes at least in the first hour. Then they'd bite your arm off and give you rabies. Maybe German rodents are like German dogs, much better behaved and more subdued than their American counterparts.

It also makes me wonder, what sort of a magical fairy land do we live in here? There is almost no violence or serious crime, no real poverty, stores are closed on Sundays, the government pays people to have kids, people only cross the street on green lights, skinny hedgehogs get to come inside for the winter... If people smiled while they walked down the street and the sun shined a little more often, it could be almost perfect. 

If you want to read more about hedgehog rescue, check out this website of a pro-hedgehog society that I found.
I will not be picking up any prickly little critters to bring them inside and feed them cat food. If you do, I won't judge you either. Just beware of hedgehogs hauntings this Halloween.