Hedgehogs eat rare birds eggs

Government agency, Scottish Natural Heritage, say the four dogs - three pointers and a collie - will be used to locate the animals.

The cull of 5,000 hedgehogs is said to be necessary to protect rare breeding wader birds, whose eggs they eat.

But animal welfare activists, who oppose the cull, say they have already saved 80 of the mammals on North Uist, South Uist and Benbecula.

The SNH is concentrating on North Uist because the hedgehogs have spread there fairly recently and they believe they have a good chance of controlling them.

These dogs, no matter how well trained, are only going to cause more suffering to the hedgehogs Ross Minett Uist Hedgehog Rescue

Some 30 have been culled so far, but the agency wants to kill about 200 this season.

In all, 5,000 hedgehogs must die over the next few years if the threat to the rare birds is to be ended.

The dogs were trialled successfully to look for hedgehogs last year.

A SNH spokesman said: "We think they will help us locate the hedgehogs - but they will not catch them.

"They will just find them."

However, Ross Minett of Uist Hedgehog Rescue said it was regrettable that SNH were bringing in the dogs.

"We would ask them to think again. These dogs, no matter how well trained, are only going to cause more suffering to the hedgehogs," he said.

Letters of objection

The cull on the Outer Hebridean island began on 7 April.

The hedgehogs are knocked out by gas and then given a lethal injection.

SNH admits there is nothing it can do to stop the hedgehogs being relocated by the protesters - because the species is not protected.

The consortium of animal welfare groups has now raised nearly �80,000 to save the hedgehogs.

The culling is part of the Uist Wader Project - a partnership between SNH and the Scottish Executive and supported by RSPB Scotland.

More than 1,200 letters of objection from animal lovers have been lodged against the �90,000 cull.

A handful of hedgehogs was first introduced to the Uists in 1974 to help control slugs and snails in islanders' gardens.

Their numbers boomed but so did the threat to important populations of waders including dunlin, lapwing, redshank and snipe.

A survey revealed that in the last decade alone some species of nesting waders in the Uists have decreased by as much as 50% - and by as much as 70% in certain hedgehog hot spots.