Hedgehog war at the sharp end

THE hotly disputed cull of hedgehogs on North Uist in the Western Isles got under way last night. The operation is on a military scale with a military-sized budget. Scottish Natural Heritage is spending £90,000 to kill 200 hedgehogs, or £450 each. At that price, it would have been cheaper to post a bounty of £10 a skin and let West Highland private enterprise do the job.

Possibly SNH was worried that too many of the animals would then be killed in the rush. Meanwhile, a Special Forces unit of hedgehog lovers has infiltrated behind SNH lines to rescue the threatened beasties. Also on call is the world’s news corps - the hedgehog war even made the New York Times. The only beings unaware of the crisis are the Uist hedgehogs, who have enjoyed island hospitality for the past 30 years, since the time when a few were introduce to eat garden pests. Now there are 5,000, largely because there are so few cars on the islands. At SNH rates, it will cost 2.25 million to get rid of them all. Alas, they stand accused of eating the eggs of ground-nesting birds.

The SNH has decided it is more natural to have birds than hedgehogs, as the birds were there first. On that basis, the human population of Uist had better look out: they’ve only been there around 5,000 years.