Prickly problem uncovered

The Press

CUTE BUT DESTRUCTIVE: Hedgehogs are known to eat birds' eggs, weta, beetles, grasshoppers and even lizards.

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The humble hedgehog has been outed as public conservation enemy No 1 near the Aoraki/Mt Cook National Park.

More than half of the 5029 predators caught over four years, across 20,000 hectares of the Tasman riverbed, were hedgehogs.

"They're very underrated," said Twizel biodiversity programme manager Dean Nelson, of the Department of Conservation.

"They are probably a lot easier to trap, but in saying that there are probably more of them out there in the first place."

The surprisingly adaptable creatures, introduced to New Zealand in the late 19th century, were found as high as 1000 metres above sea-level.

Nelson said the prickly creatures ate birds eggs but it was not known whether they carried off young birds.

They also ate weta, beetles, grasshoppers and even lizards.

A two-and-a-half year study by Landcare Research, published in 2003, bemoaned the fact that stoats, ferrets and possums got all the attention as predators.

"They are like the bad guys in balaclavas during a bank heist," Landcare Research scientist Dr Chris Jones said at the time.

"Meanwhile, hedgehogs are the guys in the background, quietly opening the safe."

The $745,000 Tasman Valley trapping programme - which is four years into its five-year term - aims to create a "mainland island" to protect riverbed wildlife.

No poisoning is done in the valley.

About 1100 traps were laid from Whale Stream up to, and including, part of the national park. Hedgehogs and stoats were 75 per cent of the trapped predators.

Wild cats featured more prominently than possums or ferrets.

The success of the trapping was measured by the breeding of native birds in riverbeds.

This season, the rare wrybill had a 100 per cent success rate for hatching chicks in the Tasman riverbed and only one banded dotterel nest was hit by predators.

- © Fairfax NZ News