Published Date: 30 April 2009
By JOHN ROSS
THE job involves trudging hundreds of miles around the Hebrides looking for an ever decreasing target for which you are paid £7.50 an hour.
But nearly 100 applicants put in their CV recently to join the hunt for hedgehogs which are being cleared from the islands because of their impact on important birds.
A successful recruitment drive by Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) means 23 people are now involved in live-trapping fieldwork around most of Benbecula and a small area of North Uist.
To date, 86 hedgehogs have been trapped and taken to the mainland where they will be released.
SNH says this is less than half the number caught last year despite an increase in effort, which is a clear indicator that continuing clearance work is paying off.
Work to clear the Uists of non-native hedgehogs will continue until mid-May.
Hedgehogs were introduced to the islands during the 1970s and have since caused major problems for native ground-nesting wader birds by eating their eggs.
The Uists support some of the most important populations of ground nesting waders including the dunlin, ringed plover, redshank, snipe, lapwing and oystercatcher in Europe.
The declines have been most dramatic in South Uist and Benbecula, where the population of some species has decreased by more than 50 per cent.
The Uist Wader Project was set up in 2000 and a hedgehog cull was started in 2003.
The project saw 694 hedgehogs caught and killed by lethal injection before the SNH board agreed to halt the killings and instead hand over the animals to the Uist Hedgehog Rescue coalition.
Since then more than 1,000 animals have been relocated to the mainland.
http://news.scotsman.com/scotland/Hedgehog-hunter-applications-flood-in.5220211.jp
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