$ perl -e '
 use strict;
 use warnings;
 use utf8;
 use Data::Dumper;
 my $data = "regular dash - other type of beast: – abcd";
 print Dumper $data;
 binmode STDOUT, ":utf8";
 print "$data";
 '
$VAR1 = "regular dash - other type of beast: \x{2013} abcd";
regular dash - other type of beast: – abcd