Karin Oehl has fed up to 435 hedgehogs a year – over and over again for 49 years. But now she’s breaking up. The hedgehogs she currently has in the basement are her last.
Pulheim – The little hedgehog has curled up into a ball of spikes, but Karin Oehl knows a trick for this case. She gently strokes his back.
Immediately the animal unrolls and crawls across the table. “A hedgehog should normally look like a drop: pointed at the front, round at the back. This is cylindrical. ”What does that mean? “That he’s too lean.” Karin Oehl pours him a supplement with a pipette. “It’s chocolate, it’s delicious,” she tries to convince him. “Schlabber mal!”
Karin Oehl looks like the classic white-haired picture book grandma. But beware! The 77-year-old is pretty temperamental. For example, she definitely doesn’t want to be called “hedgehog-grandma” or “hedgehog-mom”. Her face darkens at the name and her voice grows a few steps louder. She is definitely a mother and grandma – but of children and grandchildren, not of hedgehogs. “I’m also not a frustrated housewife who needs this for self-affirmation,” she clarifies. She was always employed, first as a doctor’s assistant, then as a nursing assistant.
“Hedgehog helper” is a term she can live with. As such, it has become known nationwide among animal lovers. “It goes from Schleswig-Holstein to Lake Constance,” she says, not without pride. “Yesterday I got a call from Straubing.” She has acquired her specialist knowledge over 49 years of work. She’s been nurturing hedgehogs for so long. Once it was 435 in a single year. Extrapolated to half a century, that adds up to x-thousands. Now, however, should be over. The hedgehogs that she currently still has in the basement of her house in Pulheim near Cologne are said to be the last.
Care for up to 60 animals at the same time
It all started in the early 1970s. As she remembers, one of the triggers was an appeal from Professor Bernhard Grzimek on television. The hedgehog was his heraldic animal, he wore it embroidered in his tie and used to say that he himself had spikes. Karin Oehl could say the same about herself. She can get really upset about vets who have her paraplegic hedgehogs brought instead of putting them to sleep, or naive helpers who give the animals incompatible cow’s milk instead of water.
The largest room in the basement is still completely covered with cages. Once she cared for 60 animals at the same time. “That was really tough.” Each cage has its own index card on which she keeps a record of the hedgehog’s development. The shelves are crammed with canned food, display boards and transport boxes. Fortunately, her husband Christoph always shared the somewhat excessive passion for hedgehogs. When she talks about him, she becomes very gentle. “My husband is a sweetheart,” she says quietly.
A few specimens are also quartered outside in the garden. But they are already hibernating, buried deep in the straw. “This is what is known as the reversible little death,” she explains. “Breathing, pulse, temperature – everything goes down.” The basement hedgehogs, on the other hand, are still active. She lifts you out of your cage. “A damp nose, black, open button balls and a teardrop-shaped body – that’s how you recognize a healthy animal.”
If you find an emaciated hedgehog, the best thing to do is to put water in front of him and scramble eggs, but without salt, please. Unfortunately, hedgehog knowledge is not widespread, she complains. Vets are usually no exception – hedgehogs are not pets with whom one can earn money. “The hedgehog brings more fleas than mice.”
High population, sealing – many things affect the animals
Overall, the hedgehogs are not doing well. Life expectancy has fallen, and there are hardly any old animals left in the station. The reasons: high population, sealing and pollution of the soil, insect death. As a result, the hedgehogs, which actually feed mainly on beetles, caterpillars and spiders, almost only find worms and snails to eat. “But these are the intermediate hosts of the internal parasites, and a heavily parasitized animal becomes weak and sick.”
Robot lawn mowers and cars are also a major threat to the hedgehogs. Karin Oehl shows a patient who is disfigured by a large red flesh wound in his spiked dress: “Someone caught him with a grass trimmer.” In an adjoining room she has set up a real small hospital ward for such cases. There she even examines hedgehog droppings under the microscope.
Of course she loves animals. But she’s not sentimental about it. “The premise of my work has always been to give nature back animals that can survive in freedom. And if that is not possible, the animal will be redeemed by the vet. ”That’s why she didn’t give the hedgehogs names, but numbers. “You have to approach it professionally. Heart and mind, you need both. “
But it should be over in the spring. Your health no longer plays a role. “It’s just torture for me.” The farewell will certainly be very emotional, isn’t it? Her answer comes in a tone that cannot be contradicted: “It won’t be very emotional. That will be a liberation. “
Well, assuming someone would put a sick hedgehog in front of her door afterwards. A really nice helpless little guy. Then of course she would provide emergency care. For one night. In the worst case scenario, a couple of days. She will therefore keep a cage for the time being to be on the safe side. A. Or two … dpa
