The story that got the international treatment. Not something you see every day, I suppose. This happened in a place called Whakatane, on NZ's East Coast, in the Bay of Plenty - and they might have plenty of hedgehogs from the sound of it (lame newsroom-style attempt at humour). Some dudes playing around with a hedgehog (they admitted they had been playing hacky-sack with it), got into an altercation with some youngsters and one of the gamesters threw the hedgehog at one of the kids, resulting in the penetration of several of the creature's spines into his right buttock and thigh. The man was arrested, the kid was treated and apparently later reported he was "happy with the outcome". The accused was found guilty of common assault and fined $130, plus $500 in reparation to the victim. "He admitted to having been in possession of a hedgehog" said Constable Lyndon Reid. The fate or whereabouts of said hedgehog are unknown at this time.
Now he's got a story to tell his friends, or he was put out of his misery. Either way I guess the hedgehog got the better end of the deal. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Hedgehogs are a valued component of the ecosystem in Europe, but they're introduced pests in Australia and New Zealand, since they don't have any natural enemies there. It's the rabbits-in-Australia, house-sparrows-in-America thing all over again.
Thats funny...I use to have a hedgehog as pets...they sure are hard to handle unless they crowl in a ball and dont move, than you can pick them up by having hands lean into direction to were needles are pointing
He got off easy, it seems. Which I suppose is fine with me. At the time we first encountered this story, the suspect was facing a possibility of five years, which would have been, in my opinion, just a bit excessive. Although ... what is the definition of "common assault" in New Zealand?
My understanding is that here in godzone, we've adapted mostly British Law, at least for "common" criminal offences. He was facing a charge of aggravated assault (assault with a weapon), but the judge, in an attempt to keep the nature of the actual crime on a "level footing" downgraded that to common assault (presumably assault without a weapon, usually). There was, I suppose, the legal difficulty with no actual weapon produced as evidence ("Are we to believe that this is the hedgehog in question, m'Lud?", etc). The weapon apparently had better things to do, on the day of the hearing.
I have never ever heard of feral hedgehogs in Australia, they're certainly not a pest here. About a million other introduced species are of course. Our native echidna is the spiky little number we have instead. You wouldn't be playing hacky sack with one of these guys alive or dead; they are a ball of muscle covered in sharp thick spines. It would be like kicking a medicine ball covered in nails.
