Report from Chris Smith
Hedgehog summit fails to find a solution
By James Freeman in the Herald, 6 th February 2003
ANIMAL rights activists and Scottish Natural Heritage failed to reach
agreement yesterday over the fate of hedgehogs under threat of being
culled.
SNH plans to kill the hedgehogs on North and South Uist and Benbecula
by lethal injection, to save the islands' wading birds. The
hedgehogs, introduced to the islands, are blamed for killing off the
birds, protected populations of international conservation status, by
eating their eggs.
The two sides met yesterday in Edinburgh, a meeting that SNH said was
constructive but which produced "no easy answers".
Advocates for Animals refused yesterday to take part in any trial
rescue and relocation programme if SNH insisted on any cull.
SNH says that any rescue must be confined to a 10-day window at the
end of April after hibernation and before the females become pregnant.
The animals, introduced originally as garden pets, now number 5000,
most of them on South Uist and Benbecula. SNH wants to contain their
spread before they fully invade North Uist.
A spokesman said: "We continue to work with the animal welfare
organisations towards a trial rescue and we will give them advice. We
want a happy solution, but SNH reserves the right to carry out a
small cull on North Uist in the spring."
Les Ward, director of Advocates for Animals, said: "We will not go
along with the killing of hedgehogs.
"It is daft and unnecessary and the public cannot understand why it
is necessary when so many people are offering to give the animals
homes. We will only involve ourselves in a trial rescue if it
involves no killing of hedgehogs whatsoever.".
© The Herald, 6 th February 2003
 |
 |
 |
| Return to index | Return to Exotic Scottish Animals | Return to Hedgehogs |