Feeding hedgehogs

One thing that jumped out at me in your last issue was your article on hedgehogs. I offer food, water and housing to quite a large number of hedgehogs. I also volunteer with our local rescue centre.

The one thing that concerned me was seeing an image of two hedgehogs feeding from a huge tray of mealworms! Mealworms, if eaten as anything more than an odd little treat, cause metabolic bone disease. Feeding too many mealworms is actually a lot worse than not feeding at all. I only hope readers don’t start offering piles of mealworms. Brian Gort, via email I must take issue with the aspect of Hugh Warwick’s article (Hogs on the up!, April 2018) where he is encouraging readers to offer supplementary food to hedgehogs. Such extra food inevitably tends towards subsidising an artificially high population of these predators to the detriment of population levels of their natural prey items, which may include robin nestlings, amphibians and stag beetles. Extra food will also tend to encourage foxes and rats (also a problem for stag beetle colonies).

Although I do not feed the resident hedgehogs, various neighbours over the years have, generally in order to show these animals to their children or grandchildren, a motivation that cannot be criticised.

BBC Wildlife is usually very good at promoting the concept of ecological balance in its articles, but all the more reason to be careful with advice on the provision of extra food. Richard Clifford, via email