Occurrence and Characteristics of Cut Injuries in Hedgehogs in Germany: A Collection of Individual Cases

Abstract

The number of European hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) is in long-term decline across Europe. Recently, an additional threat to hedgehogs’ lives has been cutting injuries caused by garden care equipment, but to date, there have been no reliable data on their spatial and temporal occurrence as well as characteristics such as mortality rate. Usually, found injured hedgehogs are admitted to care centres. In this study, data on hedgehogs with cutting injuries were collected from care centres throughout Germany. Over a period of 16 months, data on a total of 370 hedgehogs with cut injuries were reported by 71 care centres. At least 60% of these hedgehogs were found more than 12 h after the accident and at least 47% did not survive as a result of the injury. The comparatively high mortality rate coupled with a possible high number of unreported cases of hedgehogs with laceration injuries show that these accidents pose an additional, serious danger to hedgehogs, both impacting the welfare of individual animals and having a broader effect on the conservation potential of this species. Moreover, the data collected objectify the current discussion on the need for possible technical or political solutions to prevent such injuries.

Testing the Impact of Robotic Lawn Mowers on European Hedgehogs (Erinaceus europaeus) and Designing a Safety Test

“…Unfortunately, sharing habitats with humans comes at a cost, as residential gardens provide many anthropogenic sources of danger to hedgehog survival. One of these potentially harmful features is certain models of robotic lawn mowers [ 26 , 35 , 36 ]. With robotic lawn mowers becoming increasingly popular throughout the distribution range of hedgehogs in Europe, there is a high likelihood for a hedgehog to encounter numerous robotic lawn mowers throughout its lifespan.…”

Applied Hedgehog Conservation Research

“…The participation of rescue and rehabilitation centres in research can be extremely valuable and can reveal much about the problems facing hedgehogs in the wild [26,27], as can studies carried out in captivity examining behaviour and hibernation [28]. Rescue centre records can provide year-on-year data on the numbers and causes of admissions and can also contribute samples to studies of, for example, infectious and non-infectious diseases; the prevalence of environmental pollution by pesticides, heavy metals, organic pollutants, and other ecotoxins [29]; plastic waste [15]; and the occurrence and characteristics of cut injuries that are presumably caused by garden tools like robotic lawn mowers [30]. Studies by Rasmussen et al of robotic lawn mowers have shown important differences between models in the risk of injury to hedgehogs, creating the basis for specific design improvements to mitigate such risks [31,32].…”