North Shore Times (New Zealand)
Hedgehog lover’s talk at library spiked
Are hedgehogs spiky bundles of joy, or deadly predators destroying New Zealand’s environment?
Debate has erupted following a library talk on work to rescue ailing hedgehogs and successfully release them back into the wild.
Lesley Wheatley of Hedgehog Rescue New Zealand hosted the talk at Orewa Library to teach adults and children about hedgehogs, and give a shout out for volunteers to help foster animals while they recuperate.
Before the talk started, Forest & Bird’s Pauline Smith crashed it to inform people about the darker side of hedgehogs.
Hedgehogs preyed on native snails, skinks, ground nesting birds and their eggs, Smith said.
Smith started the Pest Free Whangaparaoa Peninsula project in 2011, where volunteers trap pests to help native birds and plants flourish. The release of hedgehogs into the wild made a mockery of the work of volunteers, she said.
Wheatley supports the work of Forest & Bird, but also believes every creature deserves a chance to live. Hedgehogs are released in suburbia away from areas where they could affect native birds and in places where the variable oystercatchers and New Zealand dotterel nest, Wheatley will remove hedgehogs.
Wheatley said the type of fleas that live on hedgehogs didn’t arrive in New Zealand with them. She also wanted to dispel the myth that all hedgehogs seen during the day were sick, as in late spring females are out working to create nests.
‘‘They’re out there busy gathering bits of hay, grass and moss, whatever they can find ... but they don’t need rescuing.’’
Wheatley has had a soft spot for hedgehogs since someone brought her a sick one and asked her to look after it.
The Department of Conservation kills hedgehogs on its land, but releasing them doesn’t breach the Biosecurity Act, as they are not classed as an unwanted organism.
There were no plans to manage them under a national plan or other national pest programme led by MPI, he said.
Under Auckland Council’s Regional Pest Management Strategy, hedgehogs are a pest but are only controlled from establishing on Hauraki Gulf Islands. They are exempt from the Government’s Predator Free 2050 target.