The wild hamsters of the Dutch province of Limburg are currently cherished as a cute-yet-threatened indigenous species and a marker of local identity. This has not always been the case however. In a blogpost for Mosa Historia, Raf De Bont discusses how the Dutch framing of the hamster changed radically over time, thus challenging the idea that wild animals would have an inherent and unalterable ‘charisma’.

* Photo courtesy of Gerard Müskens