Unfortunately the next day Anne, the community park warden, found a very small hedgehog wandering about in the approach road before the entrance gate. It was too small to be out on its own naturally so we presume it was the young of one of the two dead adults, which had started looking for its parents for food. The young hedgehog was injured on one leg and was taken to a local veterinary practice to see if anything could be done.

Hedgehogs are getting quite rare locally and this is the second year that adults have been found dead at Pickerings Pasture. If anyone can throw any light onto this incident please contact us via the web site.

The most likely cause of the death is that people have put out slug pellets in their garden and the hedgehogs either ate poisoned slugs, snails or even the actual pellets. They die a horrible, painful death because metaldehyde, the poisonous ingredient, dehydrates the animal. We assume that as the hedgehogs travel relatively short distances to feed they have probably picked up the poison close to the pastures.

Can we appeal to all of our readers: please do not use slug pellets to kill your garden pests. Ideally, collect them in a bucket and take them to some nearby woodland. Follow the link to find the best ways to dispose of unwanted slugs and snails:

http://www.weekendgardener.net/how-to/snails-slugs.htm