Farmers to blame for hedgehog decline

[Bald Rick]

Just read the HPS/PTES report that is used in the OP and it has this to say on badgers:

Are badgers responsible for the hedgehog decline?

Badgers are most abundant in lowland pastoral landscapes (over half the population is in the south-west of England and south Wales), areas where hedgehogs are comparatively scarce. The two species compete for food, such as earthworms and beetle larvae, and badgers will also eat hedgehogs. When they are foraging, hedgehogs tend to avoid areas where badgers have recently been active.
But while competition, predation, and avoidance are likely to reduce hedgehog numbers in areas with lots of badgers, the two species can co-exist and, moreover, in a national survey, hedgehogs weren’t found in 71% of rural sites where there are no badger setts.
Researchers at Nottingham Trent University are trying to understand the interaction between badgers and hedgehogs more fully and the extent of competition between the two species

 

[___\0/___]

Just read the HPS/PTES report that is used in the OP and it has this to say on badgers:

Are badgers responsible for the hedgehog decline?

Badgers are most abundant in lowland pastoral landscapes (over half the population is in the south-west of England and south Wales), areas where hedgehogs are comparatively scarce. The two species compete for food, such as earthworms and beetle larvae, and badgers will also eat hedgehogs. When they are foraging, hedgehogs tend to avoid areas where badgers have recently been active.
But while competition, predation, and avoidance are likely to reduce hedgehog numbers in areas with lots of badgers, the two species can co-exist and, moreover, in a national survey, hedgehogs weren’t found in 71% of rural sites where there are no badger setts.
Researchers at Nottingham Trent University are trying to understand the interaction between badgers and hedgehogs more fully and the extent of competition between the two species

 

[primmiemoo]

 

[onthehoof]

View attachment 1018485View attachment 1018486View attachment 1018487

Sounds like a tw*t

 

[Longlowdog]

You can call a large proportion (say perhaps 71%) of a 100 acre field of wheat unsuitable habitat for hedgehogs and badgers but it would be very disingenuous if you failed to mention that the 100 year old hedge that surrounds it is great habitat for both but only badgers were found there. Stat's are nothing without context.

 

[aangus]

Why is the BBC so anti farming?

 

[Muddyroads]

Why is the BBC so anti farming?

Deliberately or otherwise, they’ve become a mouthpiece for those with anti farming agendas. If they did some proper fact checking, a lot of their claims wouldn’t be made.

 

[Devil's advocate]

Deliberately or otherwise, they’ve become a mouthpiece for those with anti farming agendas. If they did some proper fact checking, a lot of their claims wouldn’t be made.

Apart from your sister. I hope.

 

[Muddyroads]

Apart from your sister. I hope.

It’s interesting how defensive she gets when the BBC are criticised.

 

[redsloe]

We have hedgehogs that come every night in summer to use the outside loo!!!
They've not quite mastered using it properly for a tinkle yet, but they have found the cat biscuits that's in there. Found 3 curled up in the bag one evening....

Also found a nest with little ones last summer whilst getting a shed ready for carting straw. 5 or 6 about the size of a tennis ball. Rang the relevant people and they said to try to move them somewhere safe. We did but they disappeared, chap said they were probably fairly independent by then.

 

[texelburger]

Why is the BBC so anti farming?

I don't know,probably the woke,pc world they frequent. Don't think I will be renewing my BBC licence this time.

 

[Ffermer Bach]

Why is the BBC so anti farming?

Because the BBC is city based with employees who are university educated (and usually left leaning, supporting "big government"), farmers are more often Conservative voting and conservative in opinion and in spite of single farm payment, don't believe in "big government", rather self reliance.

 

[aangus]

I don't know,probably the woke,pc world they frequent. Don't think I will be renewing my BBC licence this time.

Thinking the same about the licence, due on the end of the month

 

[wr.]

Thinking the same about the licence, due on the end of the month

Go for it and let us know how you get on.
They kept hounding me with threatening emails and letters threatening bailiffs for a twelve month and then they gave up.

 

[7610 super q]

Off topic.......but would rats devourer a hibernating hedgehog ?

 

[matthew]

Why is the BBC so anti farming?

They’ll take their lead from politics. And Carrie et al have said plant based factory produced food, rewilding, beavers and badgers are good while livestock farming is the spawn of the devil.
Food can be imported, is their mantra. BBC is just doing what they’re told.


Personally I feel a country which has neither basic food supplies or power is vulnerable. Very vulnerable.
But then I’m old.

 

[Cranman]

A study of the current status of the hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus), decline in Great Britain since 1960

‘Doncaster (1992) suggested that predation by badgers may account for this patchy distribution; he showed that high densities of badgers in one area in Oxfordshire appeared to enhance dispersal and mortality of introduced hedgehogs. The regional differences in hedgehog numbers indicated by the road-kill survey seem to support the suggestion that hedgehogs are most common where badgers are rarer (cf. Cresswell et al. 1989). Predation is another factor that might have an impact on the distribution and density of hedgehogs. Although a review by Reeve (1994) reveals that many species ranging from foxes (Vulpes vulpes) and dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) to various mustelids and birds of prey occasionally prey upon hedgehogs, badgers (Meles meles) pose the greatest threat in Great Britain. Although the earthworm (Lumbricis terrestris) is the most important food of the badger in Great Britain, badgers do occasionally prey upon hedgehogs (Doncaster, 1992; Doncaster, 1994; Micol et al., 1994; Neal & Cheeseman, 1996; Del Bove & Isotti, 2001; Young, 2005). Middleton (1935) even found four hedgehogs in the stomach of a single badger. Additionally, badgers may compete with hedgehogs for suitable habitat and prey (Reeve, 1994; Neal & Cheeseman, 1996). It is therefore not surprising that local impacts of badgers on hedgehogs have been studied (Doncaster, 1992; Doncaster, 1994; Micol et al., 1994; Ward et al., 1997; Young, 2005). It has for instance been revealed that hedgehogs disperse further if they are introduced in areas with a high badger density (Doncaster, 1992; Doncaster, 1994). Surveys carried out by Young et al. (2006) showed that hedgehogs were almost absent from suitable habitats in rural areas, supposedly due to high abundances of badgers. Micol et al. (1994) predicted that in areas where the mean badger density exceeds 2.27 setts per 10km2 (10km * 10km) hedgehogs would not persist. If this figure holds true, it means that hedgehog populations are at risk of extinction due to badger predation and/or competition in large parts of England. In the south west of England for instance the mean number of badger main setts can be as high as 6 to 7 per 10km2 (Wilson et al., 1997). It is suggested that urban areas provide refuges from badgers for hedgehogs (Young et al., 2006; Dowding, 2007). Badgers are mainly confined to rural areas although they occasionally dig setts in urban areas (Neal & Cheeseman, 1996). Recently however, the number of badgers in urban areas has been increasing (Delahay et al., 2009). predation pressure on hedgehogs in these areas. The question arises as to whether the increasing competition and predation due to rising numbers of badgers over the last decades (Wilson et al., 1997; Battersby, 2005; Delahay et al., 2009) has become one of the main reasons for the apparent decline in hedgehogs Although hedgehogs are present in higher abundances in arable landscapes, mainly due to the relative absence of badgers, it can be deduced from the movements of hedgehogs (chapter 4) and their habitat selection that they do not frequently use arable land itself. Radio tracking showed that hedgehogs appeared to be concentrated on the agri-environment field margins and in the hedgerows surrounding the arable fields, which they were reluctant to cross, or they (females especially) retreated within the village boundaries. It is thus thought likely that, in the absence of badgers, hedgehogs would be more numerous in landscapes dominated by pastures than is currently the case. Increasing the coverage of agri-environment field margins in arable landscapes would also benefit hedgehogs’.

 

[Lili]

Off topic.......but would rats devourer a hibernating hedgehog ?

Don't know about a hedgehog but a rat will chew at a hibernating tortoise.

 

[7610 super q]

Don't know about a hedgehog but a rat will chew at a hibernating tortoise.

I remember seeing a program recently where a cat that got trapped in a basement in New York got devoured by rats.......which got me thinking.

 

[Old apprentice]

Bbc is just a ridicules left wing hole full of so called do Gooders FFS.