By Hugh Warwick

Some of the evidence being put forward to support the contention that hedgehogs would suffer slow and lingering deaths on translocation was based on my research Hedgehog cull 'end in sight'

It had been 12 years since I had last wandered through the night with large antenna in hand, but it was an amazing feeling to be back out in the field radio-tracking hedgehogs.

Despite the exhaustion from being up all night, the cold, the many miles walked, and despite the rain and the occasional unwanted interaction with drunken locals, there was something deeply satisfying about collecting data and trying to solve a complex problem.

My return to the ecological fray started back in 2003 when I headed to the Outer Hebrides for the start of a hedgehog cull.

I had drifted into journalism after my last stint of fieldwork. The fact that I was utterly ambivalent about the fate of the Uist hedgehogs shocked many of my journalistic colleagues, as my fondness for the species was well known.

But I knew one of the ecologists who had been involved in the process that led up to the cull, Dr Nigel Reeve, then at the Roehampton Institute. I really respected his work, so assumed that this decision had been taken on the best evidence available.

Hedgehogs eat the eggs of ground nesting birds on Uist

I had been commissioned to do a piece for BBC Radio 4's Natural History Unit about the clash between hedgehog rescuers and cullers.

While everyone recognised that the hedgehogs - introduced in the early 70s - had to go because of the impact they seemed to be having on the breeding success of ground nesting birds, the method of their removal was in dispute.

Cull campaign

The story garnered enormous media interest. Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) went to great lengths explaining how the hedgehogs had to be killed because if they were moved to the mainland, as advocated by Uist Hedgehog Rescue, they would suffer a slow and lingering death.

I initially took this at face value, but after I completed the interviews I did some more digging and found that some of the evidence being put forward to support the contention that hedgehogs would suffer slow and lingering deaths on translocation was based on my research.

Hedgehogs were tracked to see if they did suffer after being relocated

In 1993, I had radio-tracked hedgehogs on their release in a new environment following a winter in the care of the RSPCA.

There was quite a high mortality, but not one death was slow and lingering. In fact, they were all fast and violent. Three were eaten by badgers and two were run over, fates that also befell the local hedgehogs.

I also discovered that Nigel Reeve's work, suggesting a trial translocation be undertaken, had been ignored by SNH. They had commissioned the head of the Humane Slaughter Association, James Kirkwood, to do a study that concluded the most humane option would be to slaughter the hedgehogs.

But despite my experience and that of many other hedgehog experts, the repeated claim by SNH that translocated hedgehogs would suffer began to gain credibility.

So working with Pat Morris, the scientist who has done more than anyone to further our understanding of this wonderful creature, and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, we concocted a plan to radio-track 20 rescued hedgehogs from Uist, just to see if they were able to survive or whether they suffered the much predicted slow and lingering death.

I was not supposed to be doing the field work, but the person I had recruited to get cold, wet and tired, pulled out at the last minute.

Shaky start

So that is how I ended up tramping around Eglinton Country Park, North Ayreshire, for a month. I did not know what would happen. My experience suggested the hedgehogs would be fine, but the claims made by SNH created considerable doubt.

All relocated hedgehogs were checked before being released

In the first week, disaster struck. One hedgehog got its head bitten off by a dog, one got eaten by a badger and another drowned. It looked as if at least some of the prediction was going to come true.

Fortunately, the animals settled down into their new lives, and I could relax a little more, getting to know the characters.

In fact, they settled down so much that they no longer conveniently rolled up into a ball for the nightly weigh-in. They learned to run, resulting in me diving head first into brambles, puddles and nettles.

When I sat down to write up the results I had no idea that they might have quite such an impact. I was trying to find out whether the hedgehogs survived. Most of them did and they behaved just like normal hedgehogs.

But the publication of the paper in the scientific journal Lutra just before last Christmas seems to have been the catalyst that the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SSPCA) needed to come out against the cull.

Up until that point, the SSPCA had been tacit supporters of the cull, but without their support it is hard to see how SNH can continue the slaughter.

And if the cull is halted? Then there will be a chance for everyone to sit down and focus on the real issue, which is not whether to kill or translocate hedgehogs, but to see how to improve the breeding success of the dunlin and ringed plover on the Uist islands.

Perhaps now is the time for me to consider a more formal return to ecological study?

All images courtesy of Hugh Warwick