"Sacha" wrote in message
...
in article , ev at
wrote on 6/4/03 9:06 am:

Haven't seen one here for two years, no signs of any round about either.

East Cornwall

You won't see many, if any, hedgehogs around if you live in badger
country.
Badgers eat them.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk

I didn't know that. Lots of dead badgers on the roads, just about one a
day, I would think, and that's just on our local roads. So badgers eat
them, they must have hard mouths :-)

Eve

"Sacha" wrote in message
...
in article , ev at
wrote on 6/4/03 4:22 pm:

A badger's bite can go clean through the bone of a man's finger and have
you
*seen* those claws?! They use the claws to unroll the hedgehog and go for
the belly. We found a poisoned one in a nearby lane two years ago and I
rang the RSPCA. The girl said "can you pick it up and take it to a vet?"
I
just sort of sat in a stupor for a second or two and asked her if she'd
ever
tried picking up a badger. Turned out it was a call centre in
London......and we're in deepest Devon. She kept asking me for the name of
the lane we were in - lanes here don't *have* names! After a few similar
experiences with the RSPCA, my belief in them is severely dented.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk


Good job you knew how dangerous they were, you could have lost a finger and
never mind the vet, you would have been in the Hospital :-))

People don't understand how things are down here in the sticks, do they? We
are 17 miles from the nearest large supermarket, 1 and a half miles from a
shop of any sort, and as for ambulances etc. forget it, it takes so long
explaining where we are that you would probably be dead by the time they
arrived. Might as well bundle the casualty into the car and drive to the
hospital yourself, probably much quicker. Derriford is the nearest, and
that's about 20 odd miles away. And as for names, as you say lanes here
have no names!

All the best
Eve

in article , ev at
wrote on 6/4/03 6:28 pm:


"Sacha" wrote in message
...
in article , ev at
wrote on 6/4/03 4:22 pm:

A badger's bite can go clean through the bone of a man's finger and have
you
*seen* those claws?! They use the claws to unroll the hedgehog and go for
the belly. We found a poisoned one in a nearby lane two years ago and I
rang the RSPCA. The girl said "can you pick it up and take it to a vet?"
I
just sort of sat in a stupor for a second or two and asked her if she'd
ever
tried picking up a badger. Turned out it was a call centre in
London......and we're in deepest Devon. She kept asking me for the name of
the lane we were in - lanes here don't *have* names! After a few similar
experiences with the RSPCA, my belief in them is severely dented.
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk


Good job you knew how dangerous they were, you could have lost a finger and
never mind the vet, you would have been in the Hospital :-))

People don't understand how things are down here in the sticks, do they? We
are 17 miles from the nearest large supermarket, 1 and a half miles from a
shop of any sort, and as for ambulances etc. forget it, it takes so long
explaining where we are that you would probably be dead by the time they
arrived. Might as well bundle the casualty into the car and drive to the
hospital yourself, probably much quicker. Derriford is the nearest, and
that's about 20 odd miles away. And as for names, as you say lanes here
have no names!


You seem even more stick-y than we are. We're about 4 miles from Totnes
(which has a Safeway) and 2.5 from Ashburton and about 30 mins drive to
Newton Abbot. One thing that helps country-dwellers is to get co-ordinates
of your house's position and stick it to the telephone both up and
downstairs. Give that to any fire engine, ambulance station etc. It's
quite important to have that info. When I was originally house-hunting in
Devon, I looked at a house in Sampford Spiney and was told that there are
especially built fire engines and even ambulances for those particularly
narrow lanes. Mercifully, I've never had to test that for myself.
Nonetheless, I'd take your measures and put the casualty into the car but in
our case the nearest is supposed to be Torbay. However, the roads are
twisty so given an emergency, I too, would zoom onto the A38 and head for
Derriford. We're about 30 minutes from Exeter and 30 from Plymouth but I
know the way to Derriford!
--
Sacha
www.hillhousenursery.co.uk

in article , Kay Easton at
wrote on 6/4/03 8:24 pm:

In article , Sacha
writes

You seem even more stick-y than we are. We're about 4 miles from Totnes
(which has a Safeway) and 2.5 from Ashburton and about 30 mins drive to
Newton Abbot. One thing that helps country-dwellers is to get co-ordinates
of your house's position and stick it to the telephone both up and
downstairs. Give that to any fire engine, ambulance station etc. It's
quite important to have that info. When I was originally house-hunting in
Devon, I looked at a house in Sampford Spiney and was told that there are
especially built fire engines and even ambulances for those particularly
narrow lanes.

You can have similar problems in older industrial cities - when a friend
had a fire, they had to wake the whole street to get them to move their
parked cars to allow the fire engine to get down the narrow road that
was originally intended for the coal merchant's delivery horse.

Yes. One size does not fit all and I use that in the broadest sense. What I
find so depressing is the idea that it should.
--
Sacha

"Jane Ransom" wrote in message
...
In article , Rog
writes
Come to think of it, I haven't seen one for a quite a long time, a
definate
decline, usual road kills are badgers.

We haven't seen a hedgehog for three years now.
There don't seem to be any for a radius of about 10 miles.
Apparently they are susceptible to distemper - at least that is the
reason an elderly farmer friend of ours gives for their complete
disappearance about three years ago.


Just goes to prove how little is accurately know about numbers of hedgehogs,
nationally or locally, still less the actual reasons for supposed declines
in local populations.

But, fear not, SNH has the answers - unless you live in the Outer Hebrides,
your location has exactly the number of hedgehogs for which it is suited,
and any declines are for the reason that the area has become permanently
unsuited to hedgehogs.