International Animal Rescue welcomes new scientific research which shows that hedgehogs can be successfully relocated after rehabilitation and that their release onto mainland Britain has no adverse effect on local hedgehog populations.
The research, conducted by scientists from Bristol University, used radio monitoring to compare the survival of hedgehogs relocated from the Uists with those released from wildlife hospitals, wild hedgehogs at the release sites and wild hedgehogs at a nearby site where no releases took place. The survival of the relocated and rehabilitated hedgehogs proved to be very similar to the resident hedgehogs, with the new animals quickly integrating into the population.
Alan Knight, CEO of IAR says: “IAR is a member of the Uist Hedgehog Rescue coalition (UHR.) This latest research supports UHR’s position on this issue, namely that hedgehogs can be humanely relocated from the Uists to mainland Britain. Over the last three years UHR has rescued more than 600 Uist hedgehogs which have been carefully released into appropriate sites, while Scottish Natural Heritage has needlessly killed 535 of these healthy wild animals.
SNH claims that it is willing to consider new scientific evidence and we urge it to review its position in light of the new research. We believe SNH should call off plans to kill any more healthy hedgehogs in 2006 and instead work with wildlife experts to relocate them onto the mainland.”