Campaign to stop the slaughter of over 5000 Hedgehogs on the Island of Uist

Are these pictures of merciless killers?  

Well Scottish Heritage would have you believe they are!!

They want to senselessly slaughter over 5000 hedgehogs, living on the island of Uist off the coast of Scotland. 

Their reasons for this are to prevent the hedgehogs eating the eggs from the nests of groundlaying birds, who use the islands as a nesting ground.

• Read the story here on the BBC Website http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/uk/scotland/newsid_2084000/2084301.stm & the updates to it BBC NEWS | Scotland | Sleeping hedgehogs defy cull and BBC NEWS | Scotland | Hedgehog cull attempt begins.

The full proposals recommending the total eradication of the entire hedgehog population from the Islands can be read here in pdf form http://www.snh.org.uk/data/boards_and_committees/main_board_papers/0246.pdf

Or Here which I have converted to web format for you to read and includes some comments on our view of this problem.

April 2003: SNH have started to catch the hedgehogs in order to kill them. There are numerous volunteers on the islands from Animal rescue organisations, who want to catch and remove the hedgehogs to the mainland for safe release.

• Please all email your oposition to the cull to Calum.Macfarlane@snh.gov.uk who is the spokesman about the cull on behalf on SNH.
  Please email him and ask him to allow the hedgehogs to be removed and for all the cull staff to catch and hand over the hedgehogs rather than gassing and murdering them.

Please read HERE the standard reply from SNH and copies of some correspondance between scientific experts in the hedgehog field and SNH

• Please all write to SNH at the address below, requesting a reply, recording your opposition to the extermination policy.
• Email BHPS on bhps@dhustone.fsbusiness.co.uk to request a standard letter that you can adapt and send to SNH
• Read here another approach, where it is suggested it is time to begin an economic boycott and blockade on Scottish tourist sites and all things Scottish, until SNH see sense and admit they were wrong, call off the slaughter and work WITH Uist Hedgehog Rescue for a solution to the problem that does not involve the needless killing of healthy animals.

Please keep up the pressure on SNH and your MP. Continue to write to the media and hopefully we can relocate these thousands of hedgehogs.

The British Hedgehog Preservation Society needs your support for this and donations towards the cost and offers of help will be gratefully received.

We must make SNH decide to adopt a better and more humane method instead of an outright unnecessary slaughter

Read the latest page about the efforts to stop this horrible and unnecessary murder of the hedgehogs

And the latest press release from UHR

What can we do to stop it.

• Email direct to Scottish National Heritage and complain directly to them
• Write to John Markland CBE
  Chairman
  Scottish National Heritage
  12 Hope Terace
  Edinburgh
  EH9 2AS
• Write or email your MP and MEP You can contact your MP through this link http://www.faxyourmp.com/ ( You should also contact your MEP as SNH say they are proposing the cull to comply with a European Directive on Bird Protection)
• Contact the RSPCA and other Animal Welfare Organisations
• Contact your Local Newspaper, TV station, Local Radio, BBC, ITV, National Newspapers
• Support Pavel, He is running in Edinburgh Marathon June 2005 for Uist Hedgehogs, and people can sponsor him online at http://www.justgiving.com/hedgehogs
• With the upcoming General Election due shortly in 2005, use the hedgehogs as a campaign issue and question any prospective MP closely especially Scottish MP's and inform them that you will refuse to vote for them unless they stop the cull.
• A petition has just been created on the care2.com network to protest about the cull http://www.thepetitionsite.com/takeaction/596636200

Let all of them know what you think about this senseless slaughter. 

Contact the British Hedgehog Preservation Society who are involved in the campaign and give them your support. This campaign may well need a lot of money if we end up moving thousands of hedgehogs from a Scottish Island to the mainland. Please be prepared to donate generously .

Contact any of the other hedghog sites listed on the links page to offer your support to this campaign

I will continue to update this page about the campaign as often as I can

Thank you for visiting and thank you for offering your support.