Secret squirrel: This Philadelphia woman hopes to keep her pet from state confiscation.

March 7–14, 2002

cover story

The Hedgehog Underground Railroad

Fearing their prickly little pets will be seized and killed by the state, local hedgehog owners have set up a clandestine, interstate escape route.

by Jenn Carbin

On Jan. 23 at 1 p.m., Connie George, a Glenolden travel agent with a home office, was sitting at her desk, on a conference call. In the middle of the call, she heard loud pounding "at both doors," she says, and her dog began to go crazy. George knew it was the Pennsylvania Game Commission (PGC). She phoned 911. "I had decided that if they came here again I wanted a police officer present," she explains.

The dispatcher told George a police officer was already there. When George opened her front door, she saw a cop car, complete with flashing light. Her visitors were the police officer and two PGC officers, including Officer Darren David. He and George had met several times in 2001.

When George let the men in, they knew where to go; they went right to the basement and emerged with two cages, each containing one African pygmy hedgehog, which are banned in Pennsylvania.

David had been there just a week before, telling George to get rid of any hedgehogs in her possession and place them in homes in states where they are legal. It wasn’t the first warning.

George, who has owned hedgehogs since 1996 and bred them since 1997, had already dwindled her collection of the animals considerably; on Nov. 2, David and another officer had paid a visit and told her to have all of her hedgehogs out of Pennsylvania by Dec. 1. From that time until PGC confiscated her last two animals, George had unloaded around 30 hedgehogs; people came to adopt from Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey and New York, and she had flown hedgehogs to Ontario, Canada and Missouri.

She had also employed an automobile rescue "train," apparently not an unusual happening in the world of owning exotic pets — pets that require specialized care and permits. Exotic-pet owners somewhat necessarily band together for support and advice, and they often offer refuge to "exotics" in trouble. According to the "hedgie" owners contacted for this story, several hedgehog trains have made it out of Pennsylvania in the past three months.

The day before Thanksgiving, in fact, eight of George’s hedgehogs had been spirited down to Cargo City, the freight shipping center at Philadelphia International Airport, the starting point of a rescue train that would see three drop-off sites and adoptions in four states.

As the officers prepared to leave with the hedgehogs, George says, she asked if they would be euthanized. "I was told, ‘None of your business.’"

Six weeks later, she has yet to find out from PGC officials whether her animals are alive. Greg Houghton, chief of PGC’s Technical Services Division, says, however, "As far as I know, the animals are alive and well."

George is set to appear March 12 at "a magistrate-level hearing" in a Delaware County court before Judge Jack D. Lippart. The commonwealth has issued her some 15 citations, each for unlawfully possessing "a hedgehog that was held in captivity or captive bred in another state or nation."

So why all the fuss about hedgehogs, which are small mammals weighing anywhere from seven ounces to two pounds?

They are not rodents, but insectivores that, in addition to insects, will eat tiny mammals or small snakes, says Ron Fricke, vice president of education at the Philadelphia Zoo. Though the hedgehog is native to England, continental Europe, Africa and Asia, the hedgehog found in the U.S. tends to be the African pygmy, or white-bellied, hedgehog, from central Africa. American owners have found the hedgehogs to be litter-trainable and quiet, with distinct personalities; these things, along with their small size, make them appealing and easy to have in the home, as far as exotic animals go.

The fuss is that African pygmy hedgehogs are legal in all but five states; Pennsylvania is in the minority. Most of the other states in which the animals are illegal, such as Arizona and Hawaii, possess warm climates within which African pygmy hedgehogs, if released into the wild, might very well thrive, disrupting native wildlife populations. PGC uses that argument; according to PGC, it’s generally illegal to own hedgehogs here because allowing non-indigenous or non-domestic animals into the state potentially endangers Pennsylvania wildlife by competing with it for habitat and maybe even gobbling it up.

Fricke and the hedgehog owners City Paper spoke to, however, agree that these animals would not under normal circumstances survive an East Coast winter, so the chances of the white-bellied hedgehog doing damage are slim.

For four or five years running, George says, she had annual U.S. Department of Agriculture licenses, which she first applied for in ’97, "to be able to breed exotics." It seems that she thought she was legally up-to-speed as a hedgehog breeder and owner. She certainly wasn’t doing this in secret. "There was a story in the Delaware County Daily Times in 1997 or 1998" featuring her and her hedgehogs, she says. "The feature took up, with the photo, close to one-third of a page. I have a website. I’ve been on a breeder list."

Since July of this past year though, PGC has challenged her hobby. Jerry Feaser, press secretary for PGC, says this should be no surprise. "The regulation has been in place since May of 1992," he points out.

Despite the 10-year existence of the law, George says that she was never informed by PGC regarding it and that PGC came out of the blue with a search warrant in July "to tell us we hadn’t had the right permits or licenses from the state."

As it turns out, a USDA breeding license for a particular animal doesn’t mean PGC grants permission to keep the animal. "The USDA can give licenses, but they are superceded by Pennsylvania Game Commission importation provisions," says PGC’s Houghton.

According to George, that was never made clear. Nor was the fact that, according to the 1992 law, only exotic animals related to animals already in the state by 1992 are permitted to live here or be bred here. Owners able to show documentation proving their hedgehogs belong to such a lineage may keep the animals. Though Houghton says the law is clear, he says, "I don’t know of anyone who’s had the documentation."

According to part of the Game and Wildlife Code and specific regulations in the state code, it is unlawful for an individual to import into the state any game or wildlife either taken from the wild, "held in captivity or captive bred in another state or nation." Exceptions are made for zoological gardens, nationally recognized circuses and "certain educational or scientific facilities or menageries." It seems straightforward.

The problem might be, however, that individuals calling PGC aren’t being read the code; they’re being given advice by humans with varying degrees of information. In some cases, say hedgehog owners interviewed for this article, it seems PGC representatives have little understanding of what hedgehogs even are.

And just what, these days, is considered a "wild" or non-native animal?

George, a 42-year-old mother of two, says that, at one point, PGC officials compared her to a drug dealer. "They told me, ‘You were a supplier.’"

George, who says she bought her first hedgehog in a Delaware County pet shop, admits she wasn’t thinking about laws when she got the hedgehog. "I didn’t know there would be regulations on small, harmless animals."

Breeding was a different story. When she made the decision to keep a small "herd" and sell them in the mid-’90s, she says she "called the [PGC], called the USDA." George says that PGC representatives told her the animals "were legal to own and sell in Pennsylvania, but illegal to import into the state. I was also advised that there were no permits nor licenses required."

Michael T. Regan

Secret squirrel: This Philadelphia woman hopes to keep her pet from state confiscation.

George says the director of PGC’s Bureau of Law Enforcement himself had given her misinformation. "David Overcash told me to keep proof that they were bought in Pennsylvania — sales slips — and that that’s all I had to do."

Jerry Feaser says, "I’m certain Mr. Overcash was discussing requirements for animals in the state prior to the enactment of the law in 1992. He’s very consistent."

He says that, bottom line, responsibility for George not following the law rests with her. "Ever go before a judge? Ever plead ignorance to the law? It doesn’t work."

Last year PGC served a breeder friend of George’s with a search warrant and issued citations to the woman for breeding hedgehogs. George began calling and faxing PGC, she says, to find out what was going on with regulations. She describes getting different answers from different PGC representatives. In July, the visits from PGC officers began.

Though by her own accounts George has always known that hedgehogs in Pennsylvania have had to be bred and sold in Pennsylvania, she admits to illegally acquiring 15 out-of-state hedgehog babies from Washington state in January 2001. "I did the importation," she says, adding that she wanted to meet demand for the animals. "We used to have people come from New England and up from Virginia [to get hedgehogs]."

It is hard to know if George’s citations and day in court have to do with the imported animals — she seems unsure, and PGC officials won’t comment on the case — but it seems likely given that she brought in 15 animals from Washington and says there are 15 citations. George insists the Washington animals "were sold out of the state" within a couple of weeks of her getting them, and that those seized or sent away recently were born and bred in Pennsylvania.

It was initially unclear how many citations George would be given. Each citation comes with a penalty of $100.

In November, she says, she received five citations by mail. A few days later, she was told by Officer David that "if I cooperated and waived my right to a hearing, they would knock it down to four, but if I chose to have a hearing, they’d bring it up to 10 [citations]."

She says, "You’re telling somebody they don’t have their right to a day in court. They threatened our right to due process."

PGC will not comment further on the George case, citing the pending litigation.

Feaser says of the wildlife code, "This was an effort to stop the spread of diseases that might impact human populations, Pennsylvania wildlife and domestic livestock." The main duty of PGC, though, he says, is to "protect, preserve and conserve" wildlife native to Pennsylvania from more than disease.

"There are numerous examples in history of exotic animals being introduced into an area and out-competing native species." He and Houghton point to Pennsylvania birds.

Houghton says, "The best two examples of [such destruction] are the European starling and the English sparrow. They were brought in during the late 1800s or early 1900s." Those birds devastated local songbird populations. Houghton explains, "The English sparrow directly competes with eastern bluebirds for nesting sites."

Houghton says PGC doesn’t have time for the nitty-gritty of every non-native animal and whether it’s likely to wreak havoc. "It’s a cut-and-dry thing. And how do we know how the winter’s going to be? We don’t need exotics to come in."

"There are very valid reasons to prohibit the importation of non-native wildlife," Feaser says. "Nature put wildlife in certain parts of the world for a reason, and humankind should not be manipulating [that]."

The zoo’s Fricke understands PGC’s caution. "Animals can adapt to situations. If you end up with a mild winter and the hedgehog can hole up somewhere —you don’t know what, over time, they might adapt to."

Donnasue Graesser-Correra teaches pathology and biology at Yale University and Albertus Magnus College, respectively, both in New Haven,Conn. She’s owned hedgehogs and is a veteran of hedgehog trains, which, aside from any current controversy, are often carried out to get animals better homes. Graesser-Correra laughs as she describes a "rescue corridor that runs between New Hampshire and New Jersey."

Currently, many in the hedgehog-owner community are afraid that rumors of the animals being confiscated and euthanized are true, and so they’re organizing trains to save them from being destroyed. Most of the coordinating is done, not surprisingly, over the Internet.

Graesser-Correra’s latest involvement with one was with the train that left from Connie George’s house.

She says, "I offered to help move the hedgehogs. Then it became, ‘Can you drop a hedgehog off here? Can you drop a hedgehog off there?’"

The train started with a woman known simply as Aimee driving from central New Jersey. She met George at Philadelphia International Airport the day before Thanksgiving. George handed over eight hedgehogs and Aimee drove the animals to homes in northwest Pennsylvania and northern and central New Jersey. Graesser-Correra met Aimee in northern Jersey and picked up three, taking them to Connecticut, where she lives. A Connecticut couple took two of those hedgehogs; a woman from Massachusetts drove down to Graesser-Correra and took the third.

Graesser-Correra, who studies human disease but admits to an interest in hedgehog pathology, says foot-and-mouth disease is probably the main reason for what many hedgehog owners see as a PGC crackdown. "There’s a heightened fear because the media is highly focused" on that disease, she says.

Regarding the maintenance of Pennsylvania’s ecologic balance in the face of this hedgehog presence, Graesser-Correra thinks PGC is overreacting. "I think the PGC needs to be educated about the habits and living conditions of this particular animal. They couldn’t survive a Pennsylvania winter."

She says that hedgehogs "should be legal" here, but that clarifying the law would be better for all concerned, even if it means no one can possess a hedgehog in the state. Specifically, Graesser-Correra says, PGC should simplify what animals are not allowed in Pennsylvania. She offers California as an example. "There, anything other than dogs, cats and domestic livestock is not permitted," she says.

Lori Keller of Hilliard, Ohio, was involved in a hedgehog train this past summer. A woman in Pennsylvania decided she’d "had enough of dealing with [PGC]" and its "ambiguity," says Heller. "There were five of us involved. My leg involved six-and-a-half hours of driving."

Keller says another woman named drove six hedgehogs from the breeder’s home in Bethlehem to Erie, where Keller met her one summer afternoon on an exit off of the interstate. They hung out for "about 90 minutes," says Keller. "We watered and fed the hedgehogs and let them play on the grass. We checked their stress levels."

Keller then drove from Erie through various Ohio cities — Youngstown, Columbus, Dayton and Springfield — on to Indianapolis. Someone who took all six to the next destination, somewhere southwest, met Keller in Indianapolis. Many hours and two drivers later, the animals arrived in Red Lick, Miss., about 70 miles southwest of Jackson, Miss. Keller seems happily resigned to her rescue duties. "Sometimes it’s depressing, when you think about how much money we spent moving these six animals — but you know…"

Keller says that considering wear-and-tear and gas costs, a conservative estimate of the cost to each of the five drivers in the train, if split evenly, is around $122. The most efficient route from Bethlehem to Red Lick involves approximately 19 hours of driving and more than 1,100 miles.

Trisha Neece of Columbus, Ohio, who co-owns a heating/air-conditioning company with her boyfriend, is currently organizing a foster-home list in case any hedgehogs that might remain in Pennsylvania need to be moved. Those hedgehogs would be part of an underground train — animals moved quickly and in secret because PGC is moving in to confiscate them. Neece says, "We have gotten 25 or 26 people in 10 states and Canada to offer up foster [care]. The owners in Pennsylvania will have an opportunity to get their hedgehogs into safe homes."

Jill, a woman in West Philadelphia who owns two female hedgehogs and doesn’t want her full name used for fear of unwanted attention from PGC, agrees with Connie George that PGC is giving out inconsistent and confusing information. "Some people have been told it’s just illegal to breed them, some that it’s just illegal to import them… some that it’s illegal to sell them in Pennsylvania.

"The thing is, we would like them to tell us what the rules are. I would love to comply. At the very least, responding to our requests with an official letter would do."

Feaser says, "It is my understanding that the regulations were clearly enunciated to Ms. George."

Both Jill and George point out that state regulations regarding exotic animals are ambiguous and could be read to include other animals such as ferrets or guinea pigs.

Jill asks, "Why are they going after hedgehogs specifically? I’ve heard something about it having to do with hoof-and-mouth disease, but hedgehogs have been in this country for a while now." This is true: According to PGC, no hedgehogs have been permitted to enter the country from Africa since 1991.

What seems ambiguous is not the state’s stance on wildlife, but what constitutes wildlife in Pennsylvania. Houghton says ferrets, guinea pigs, hamsters, gerbils and chinchillas have become "pet-store animals, so far removed from wildlife populations that they’re allowed in." He says hedgehogs and sugar gliders are, by comparison, "new on the scene."

There’s been a rumor circulating locally that 57 hedgehogs have been seized and destroyed, but it seems to be just that — a rumor. No one interviewed for this story could point to animals being seized, other than George’s.

According to Feaser, animals are only rarely euthanized when taken by PGC. "There are three options when animals are confiscated: One, they are seized for evidence and then placed in a suitable facility with rehabilitators. These individuals are state-licensed, private entities; two, they are shipped to the place of origin at the [former] owner’s expense; and three, they are euthanized, which is the last and least-desired option."

Fricke says the safest way for anyone considering an exotic pet to avoid heartbreak and illegal activity is to contact animal authorities on the federal, state and city levels and follow all their rules, understanding that stricter rules always override less strict ones.

"You have to obey all of them, so the one that is strictest is the bottom line," he explains.

George, meanwhile, awaits her day in court, and hopes her hedgehogs are all right. "It’s been exasperating. I’m trusting that the courts will see the truth in all of this — that the law is ambiguous and the PGC is not helpful over the phone."

 

 

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