British Wildlife Management - British Wildlife Management

Scotsman 3.9.05

Scottish Hedgehog Cull: A prickly problem with the law
Alastair Robertson

"One of the more entertaining aspects of the hunting with dogs legislation, actually designed to stop us hunting with dogs, is the complete Horlicks it has generated in the case of Scottish Natural Heritage versus hedgehogs."

Alastair Robertson goes on to outline the history of the hedgehog problem and how:

"The only way to root out the remaining few and prevent them from breeding is to set the dogs on them. I can only wish I had been present at the SNH legal and scientific sub committee meeting, or whatever, charged with discussing and analysing the implications of using dogs.

"At some point the ghastly truth must have descended upon the meeting that the legislation introduced to prevent hunting foxes with dogs (which it doesn't) also prevented hunting hedgehogs with dogs, unless you shot them once they had been "flushed". Except that hedgehogs don't make a run for it, they just roll into a ball, whereupon the trained SNH operative will have to drag off the over-excited dog, possibly remove the ball of spikes from its jaws, clear the area in line with SNH hedgehog-culling guidelines and shoot it with a big gun before disposing of the carcass in line with Scottish Environmental Protection Agency rules for the disposal of dead livestock."

The full article may be read at http://news.scotsman.com/features.cfm?id=1870982005