Report from Chris Smith
Islanders offered £20 to save hedgehogs from extermination
Paul Kelbie, Scotland Correspondent in the Independent, 7 th March 2004
Hedgehogs facing government-controlled extermination on the Outer
Hebrides could win a last-minute reprieve because of £20 bounties
being offered to islanders for each animal snatched from death.
For the second year running animal rights campaigners are to launch a
search and rescue operation on the islands of Uist in an attempt to
relocate as many animals to the mainland as possible before Scottish
Natural Heritage (SNH) begins round two of its controversial cull of
the prickly creatures on 5 April. Rescuers have upped their bounty
payments from £5 to £20 per animal to try to persuade more residents
to hand the hedgehogs over to them rather than the cullers.
Based in a tiny caravan, complete with a veterinary hospital, close to
Benbecula airport, rescuers from the British Hedgehog Preservation
Society and Hessilhead Wildlife Rescue Trust in Ayrshire will open for
business until the end of May.
Last year islanders on Uist were offered £5 for each hedgehog, and
some still handed them to the hunters - a clear indication of how the
community has been split by the cull.
Hedgehogs are not native to the islands. They were introduced in the
Seventies by a gardener who wanted to control slugs. Their population
has since exploded to more than 5,000 spread throughout South Uist,
Benbecula and North Uist.
The hogs have been feasting on the eggs of rare wading birds and other
ground-nesting species which have until recently used the island as a
safe breeding ground and refuge.
As a result of the decimation caused by the hedgehogs SNH decided that
the most humane answer to the problem was a cull. They feared that
relocating the animals to the mainland would cause unnecessary
suffering. Their decision has upset animal welfare campaigners,
including celebrities such as Joanna Lumley, Twiggy, Sting, Sir Paul
McCartney and Sir Tim Rice.
Last year's rescue operation saved 156 hedgehogs, which were relocated
to the mainland. Ross Minet, director of the Edinburgh-based Advocates
for Animals, which has been leading the Uist Hedgehog Rescue, said:
"Despite the gloom and doom predictions of SNH that the rescued
hedgehogs would die slow and painful deaths we know of only one that
has died - and that was attacked by a dog."
Following last year's cull, which was confined to North Uist, SNH,
which killed just 66 animals in the face of more than 3,000 letters of
protest, have decided to expand the extermination programme to the
neighbouring island of Benbecula, followed by South Uist in 2005. By
comparison the rescuers are scaling back their presence on the islands
this year, preferring instead to rely on the local knowledge and
humanity of the residents.
"We're hoping that £20 will be more of an incentive to the islanders
to bring the hedgehogs," Mr Minet said. "It may seem an expensive
bounty but it is a lot less than the cost of killing them."
© The Independent, 7 th March 2004
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