"Helen" wrote in message
...
Couldn't believe my eyes to read about the slaughter of hedgehogs! As I
live
in OZ, I'm not sure of what RSPB stands for. Why would any organisation
lead a slaughter of hedgehogs? Can someone please help?



RSPB stands for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. It was
founded a hundred years or so ago as a society trying to protect some birds
from the consequences of overexploitation for feathers for fashion purposes.
However, it has grown significantly, and is now a large organisation, with
charitable status and a couple of million members, dedicated to the
conservation of wild birds and their habitats. As such, it has,
understandably, developed considerable skill, expertise and 'muscle' in the
area of manipulation of politicians and quangos to help achieve its
preferred conservation ends.

The machair of the western islands in question is host to breeding
populations of wading birds of considerable European significance, and the
UK Government is signed up to initiatives requiring them to protect the
habitat frequented by those birds. Scottish National Heritage (SNH) is the
quango with the duty to comply with the protection requirement.

Some of the populations of wading birds have been declining over the past
few decades, and there is a correlation with the spread of hedgehogs onto
the islands. Although the hedgehogs are native to Europe, and to Scotland,
there have been none present on these islands in recent historical times,
although it is not clear whether any have existed there since the last ice
age (one of the tests of 'nativeness'). The present population is believed
to descend from escapees of a handful brought into the islands in the 1970s
by gardeners seeking an 'organic' control of slugs and other garden pests.
It is possible that others may have been introduced accidentally, e.g. in
fodder bales.

The Isles are a very good habitat for hedgehogs, with plentiful food, few
roads and few natural predators. The hedgehogs have exploited this and
spread rapidly, some of them, of course, foraging onto the machair.

Research carried out by the Uist Wader Group (a sort of joint RSPB/SNH task
force) suggested that hedgehogs may be responsible for some predation of
nests of some of the waders, and hedgehogs were excluded from some trial
areas by means of fencing. It was found that breeding success of some (but
not all) wader species increased significantly in the areas from which
hedgehogs were excluded, and this is generally accepted as evidence that
hedgehogs were a contributory factor to the observed declines.

Hence, SNH, prompted quite legitimately by RSPB, concluded it was obliged to
act to protect the machair and the wader populations by exclusion of the
hedgehogs from the vulnerable areas. It further concluded that methods like
fencing were impracticable, and that the best option was the elimination of
the hedgehog population. Uist wader group had recommended that a pilot study
should be set up to investigate the feasibility of translocation of
hedgehogs to the mainland, but SNH decided not to bother with that, on the
grounds that translocation was less humane than extermination.

They have therefore set up a scheme whereby hedgehogs are trapped, and then
euthanised by lethal injection. The trapping season is extremely limited,
because it is difficult to tell whether trapped animals have dependent
litters, and it would of course be inhumane to destroy a mother and leave
the litter to starve. Obviously, then, it is going to take a very very long
time to eliminate the hedgehogs by the method chosen.

There are numerous organisations in the UK devoted to the welfare of the
hedgehog, the UK's only spiny mammal, and they have set up a rival scheme
whereby locals are paid to bring in captured hedgehogs, which are placed in
a translocation programme, i.e. released live in suitable locations on
mainland UK.

So, summarising, there is general agreement that the hedgehog populations on
these remote islands need to be managed to help conserve the populations of
some wading birds, but there is disagreement on the means best suited to
achieve that objective. RSPB/SNH want them killed, just as rats and mink are
exterminated, whereas hedgehog welfare organisations, quite understandably,
prefer translocation, a technique they have employed for many years in
respect of thousands of displaced and distressed hedgehogs.