| Following a poor
response from Uist islanders last year, would-be hedgehog rescuers are upping the bounty
from £5 to £20 per little erinaceus skull as Scottish Natural Heritage embark on
their yearly cull of the jaggy wee bastards. One itchy-jereseyed animal activist, Tim
Really Nice But A Bit Naïve, told the JT "By offering £20 per head, we’re
hoping more hedgehogs will be handed over, allowing us to re-home them."
The attractive fee has already had an positive effect, with hedgehog handovers reaching
record levels, as our be-bearded soft lad source now explains: "Just yesterday, a
Transit pulled up full of hedgehogs. The driver was really keen just to get his money,
because he said he was in a rush to get back to the mainland, but he’d be back
tomorrow with ‘hunners of hedgehogs’." |
The difficulty for Tim
lies in establishing the provenance of the hedgehogs. " I asked the van driver if he
was sure all the hedgehogs he’d brought were indigenous to Uist, but all he said
before driving off was ‘why don’t you ask them?’ " Whatever the
final outcome of Tim’s humane experiment, one thing’s for sure: previous
estimates of the island’s hedghog population will need to be revised radically
upwards. "The original reckoning of 5000 seems a bit low." Tim conceded as he
attempted to deal with 20000 hedgehogs wearing trackie bottoms demanding to know where
their Sunny D was.
In a touching show of support for the embattled erinaceus, it is reported that celebs
such as Joanna Lumley and Sting are to visit the island. Although if the celeb squawker
makes one move to pick up his guitar, it’ll no just be the beasties that will be
getting kilt… |
