Treating 'pests' humanely

By Campbell Woollams

Over New Year’s I happened to spot a hedgehog stuck down a hole left from a recently removed fence post. Naturally, we rescued the hedgehog and let him carry on his merry little way. I did this despite knowing that in New Zealand, unlike in the UK, hedgehogs are actually a pest.

Introduced in 1885, there are on average two to four of these secretive and seemingly benign hedgehogs per hectare in New Zealand. With their pointed noses, shuffling gait and intriguing spines they are (to me at least) undeniably cute. Which is the crux of problem of hedgehogs in New Zealand. If they appeared to us as a scurrying, aggressive, encroaching type of mammal (like rats, mice, ferrets, and stoats), it would be far easier to declare all-out war on them, knowing that they play a significant part in the predation of rare skinks and eggs from ground resting native birds.

To flick a switch and have all hedgehogs (and why not rats, mice, rabbits, stoats, ferrets and possums) disappear from New Zealand would be great and certainly easier to swallow than having to actively hunt them out and kill them. However, dealing with the individual and talking about the masses are two very different things.

‘Out of sight out of mind’ equally applies to the death of a native bird or skink at the hands of a hedgehog. We might not be pulling the trigger in this case but we have certainly orchestrated the situation. Any creature’s protection or destruction shouldn’t be founded on an empathy built around how “cute” it appears to us. Think fur seals and rats. Or even hedgehogs and skinks. I hold that all animals deserve to be treated humanely – even if that only means they are killed humanely, regardless of their perceived worth to us either emotionally or financially.

So in the situation of hedgehogs how do we decide to target them for destruction to protect skinks and birds? If humans upset the balance by introducing something into an environment at the detriment of existing species then how much ‘detriment’ is acceptable? Should we go about repairing things? Is eradication of the ‘pest’ feasible or desirable? What will be the financial and ecological cost? What will be the cost of in-action?

If there was a nationwide policy not to give care to sick, injured (or stranded) hedgehogs will this make any appreciable difference if the main war isn’t being fought on other fronts (i.e. a nationally declared eradication/control programme)? I personally give preference to native wildlife. Though at the risk of sounding hypocritical, I don’t regret saving the stranded hedgehog, as its death alone would achieve no appreciable difference. I wish they could just share the hedge!

Published February 2011