Hedgehogs facing trap danger

Thatcham based charity calls for people to think of the spiny mammals

PEOPLE are being asked to spare a thought for hedgehogs this summer following an increase in injuries to the loveable animals.

In the last week, Hedgehog Bottom – the Berkshire Hedgehog Hospital based in Thatcham – has received double its yearly intake of animals injured by rat traps.

Founder and manager, Gill Lucraft, said that the centre in Chapel Street usually dealt with two trap victims a year but she had received four in the last week.

The traps are designed to break the backs of rats but Mrs Lucraft said that hedgehogs were becoming casualties, with their paws and noses being damaged.

“We have had hedgehogs in with noses chopped off completely. Hedgehogs can’t manage without a nose or front legs and sometimes they have to be put to sleep,” she said.

“People are just sticking them in their back gardens and they’re catching everything in sight. It’s not just hedgehogs, its birds and all sorts.”

Mrs Lucraft said she had been advised by Natural England that the traps, which can be bought in high street stores, should be placed on raised platforms to avoid injuries to hedgehogs.

The estimated 35 million hedgehogs in Britain during the 1950s have now dwindled to less than one million.

Mrs Lucraft said that while hedgehogs were not endangered they were in decline across the region.

She said: “In Newbury and Thatcham if you said hedgehogs are declining people would think you were strange because they are in people's gardens. They are declining significantly and they need our help because it’s us killing them off.”

For more information visit www.hedgehog-rescue.org.uk