Q & A

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Q: SNH claims that it was forced to kill the hedgehogs due to international law, so surely we should have been directing our concerns elsewhere?

A: Under the ‘European Union’s Wild Birds Directive’, Member States are required to take special measures to conserve the habitats of rare bird species and of regularly occurring migratory birds. The situation in the two designated Special Protected Areas (SPAs) on the Uists requires that the UK Government take steps to remedy the decline in wader birds. The introduced hedgehogs have been found to be, at least partially, responsible for the declines. We of course accept that this is a problem that must be solved. However, we have always argued that that the hedgehogs should be removed alive, rather than dead.

SNH also referred to the ‘IUCN (the World Conservation Union) Guidelines on Re-introductions’ as binding it to the current course of action. These are only guidelines. There is no obligation to follow them, and they are not appropriate for the situation in the Uists as they are designed for the re-introduction of species into former native areas from which they have been lost, rather than translocating them away from a site as part of a conservation exercise. Any concerns that there could be conflict with the IUCN guidelines were thoroughly dealt with in a proposal submitted by UHR to SNH.

Q: SNH is using taxpayers’ money to do this, so surely it will have chosen the most cost-effective option?

A: In the first year the Uist Wader Project had a budget of £90,000 of taxpayers' money. It spent it all and killed just 66 hedgehogs. That equates to £1,363 per hedgehog. SNH had since agreed a budget of nearly £190,000 per year for the eradication of Uist hedgehogs. And they were getting better at catching and killing hedgehogs - averaging 200 per year. But that still equated to £950 per hedgehog killed. UHR estimated that it costs just £50 to rescue, transport and release each hedgehog and that is money coming from donations from the public. In fact UHR was putting money back into this rural community through the reward scheme.

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