Hedgehog cull suspended

[Marts]

Thought this might be of interest. Apparently it's been in the wind for a while. When Brian May put his weight behind it I guess it was inevitable

Scottish national Heritage has decided to suspend the Western Isles cull

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/highlands_and_islands/6378245.stm

It was originally brought in to protect the eggs of nesting birds, but they have now agreed to hand them over to a wildlife organisation for transportation to the mainland.

 

[gregorach]

It was originally brought in to protect the eggs of nesting birds, but they have now agreed to hand them over to a wildlife organisation for transportation to the mainland.

The hedgehogs, that is, not the eggs of nesting birds...

If they can make translocation work (and it seems they can) then good on 'em.

 

[Marts]

The hedgehogs, that is, not the eggs of nesting birds...

If they can make translocation work (and it seems they can) then good on 'em.

Indeed

When I re-read it I saw myself saying that it was the birds themselves who have agreed to hand over the hedgehogs. Curse my grammatical turn-of-phrase

 

[MagiKelly]

Not sure how you can make translocation work. either

1) You place the hedgehogs where there are already hedgehogs and thus increase the population to an un-natural level. Thus there will be more competition for resources until the level dies back to a sustainable one or

2) You place hedgehogs where there are none already. Perhaps an island with a ground nesting sea bird population

 

[gregorach]

They're moving them to places on the mainland where the hedgehog population is in decline. Hedgehogs populations trhoughout the UK are down by about 20% over the last few years. Or at least that was what was in the article I read this morning...

 

[gregorach]

Ah yes, there's another BBC article on the matter here, with much more detail on the proposals. Basically, they'll be going into people's gardens - a great way of reducing the slug population.

 

[MagiKelly]

But what makes them think that what is killing off the existing population will not kill of the new arrivals?

I am, as you can guess, not in favour of relocating the hedgehogs. I think it is the wrong approach and is only being done as people do not like to actually directly have to cull and animal. So to save us from that emotional pain we are subjecting a wild animal to captivity, drugging, transportation, rehabilitation and then eventually releasing it into an environment where the resources cannot support it.

Of course it may not be the relocated hedgehog that dies, it may be the one who had an established area and was just nicely set up before he got company.

Anyway I am not usually one to rant so I will go sit down now

 

[gregorach]

Well, those were the objections originally raised, and they're entirely credible. Several years of careful research later, it turns out that translocation does seem to be a viable option after all. Personally, I have no problems with the cull other than that it doesn't seem to be very effective at actually reducing the numbers (although this is probably because it's not been carried out ruthlessly enough). However, if new evidence indicates that translocation is a better option, why not? I can certainly think of many gardeners who would like to have a hedgehog in their garden.

The main cause of death for hedgehogs in the UK is violence of some form or another - mainly from dogs, badgers or cars. It's certainly not competetion between indivual hedgehogs, so this translocation plan should have a beneficial effect.

You might also like to read this article by the guy who did the original research that was used to bolster the argument for a cull.

 

[bent-stick]

But what makes them think that what is killing off the existing population will not kill of the new arrivals?

I am, as you can guess, not in favour of relocating the hedgehogs. I think it is the wrong approach and is only being done as people do not like to actually directly have to cull and animal. So to save us from that emotional pain we are subjecting a wild animal to captivity, drugging, transportation, rehabilitation and then eventually releasing it into an environment where the resources cannot support it.

Of course it may not be the relocated hedgehog that dies, it may be the one who had an established area and was just nicely set up before he got company.

Anyway I am not usually one to rant so I will go sit down now

Quite right...relocation rarely has good results - when will we learn. The only benefit is that no one actually does the killing.

On second thoughts inflammatory text whited out...only read it if you want to...

Keeps the woolly minded treehuggers happy.

 

[Silverback]

Of course it may not be the relocated hedgehog that dies, it may be the one who had an established area and was just nicely set up before he got company

I think you are spot on there MagiKelly - that is exactly what happened to the Barn Owl

 

[MagiKelly]

Well, those were the objections originally raised, and they're entirely credible. Several years of careful research later, it turns out that translocation does seem to be a viable option after all. Personally, I have no problems with the cull other than that it doesn't seem to be very effective at actually reducing the numbers (although this is probably because it's not been carried out ruthlessly enough).

I suspect you are correct as well

However, if new evidence indicates that translocation is a better option, why not? I can certainly think of many gardeners who would like to have a hedgehog in their garden.

Because it is a huge waste of resources. The effort and energy that has gone into transporting these hedgehogs could have made a better impact on other causes. I do some voluntary shows for HessilHead animal Rescue and this as one area where I disagreed with them. The resources they were devoting to these hedgehogs, which were not injured, reduced the time etc available for treating other injured animals.

The main cause of death for hedgehogs in the UK is violence of some form or another - mainly from dogs, badgers or cars. It's certainly not competetion between indivual hedgehogs,

I think increasing the population will make these hedgehogs more visible to the dogs, badgers or cars. One hedgehog crossing a road a night is half as likely to result in a death as two crossing the same road in a night.

so this translocation plan should have a beneficial effect.

Even if it turned out to be beneficial for the hedgehogs, what about the slugs or whatever was eating the slugs before? Or any of the other resources the hedgehog will use

And to anyone reading this I accept that Duncan and I largely agree on this and are just having the discussion, just in case anyone thinks we are arguing politely

 

[Silverback]

Never mind the hedgehogs translocate all urban foxes to Buckinghamshire MWAHAHAHA (evil villianous type laugh )

 

[gregorach]

Don't get me wrong mate, if I thought the most effective way to preserve the machair ecology was to feed live hedgehogs into mincing machines, I'd be in favour of it.

It's an unfortunate fact that a lot of people have ridiculously sentimental feelings about certain animals. Unfortunate, but inescapable. That's one of the things that makes it hard to do an effective cull - not many people are up for doing it, and some misguided individuals will try and "save" the animals in question. However, if a good number of people want to volunteer to "save" the poor widdle eggwogs by rounding them up and shipping them off, then I say we should let them, barring some really compelling reason not to.

If the level of resource that could be directed to the problem were fixed, I might agree that translocation was counterproductive. But the fact is that a lot of people will volunteer to "save" them (and in fact already have, which is how they did the study in the first place), whereas you have to pay people to cull them.

Yes, if you increase the population in an area you will see a higher rate of fatalities - but you'll still have a higher population, for a while at least. The converse of the argument you've just presented is that the most effective way to reduce mortality in a species is to kill them all. And I'm sure you're not really arguing that the common garden slug is in need of additional protection...

Or you could, of course, argue that since it's impossible to know in advance the full consequences of any act, we should never do anything... But I don't find it very convincing.

 

[Tengu]

The ugly reality about the flea bitten teazels is they are one spicies known to be benificial to man.

(in the right place....island ecologies are very fragile, and what about the boom bust populace of soay sheep on St Kilda? These are domestic animals for control by humans, not left to overpopulate untill they die off of diesease)

(I dont think talking hedgehogs to death is very effective, myself...)