Brought over by British settlers to make themselves feel more at home, the diminutive mammals are thriving – which spells doom for native wildlife
Consider the hedgehog. Tiny, rotund, bright-eyed and snuffling, they are shampooed for internet videos, fed saucers of milk by children, and have been immortalised by Beatrix Potter’s Mrs Tiggy Winkle. Of all the nocturnal mammals one may encounter poking through the backyard at night, they are surely the most beloved.
But in New Zealand, these small, trundling, spiky creatures are killing machines.
