Calendar An icon of a desk calendar. Cancel An icon of a circle with a diagonal line across. Caret An icon of a block arrow pointing to the right. Email An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of the Facebook "f" mark. Google An icon of the Google "G" mark. Linked In An icon of the Linked In "in" mark. Logout An icon representing logout. Profile An icon that resembles human head and shoulders. Telephone An icon of a traditional telephone receiver. Tick An icon of a tick mark. Is Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes. Is Not Public An icon of a human eye and eyelashes with a diagonal line through it. Pause Icon A two-lined pause icon for stopping interactions. Quote Mark A opening quote mark. Quote Mark A closing quote mark. Arrow An icon of an arrow. Folder An icon of a paper folder. Breaking An icon of an exclamation mark on a circular background. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Caret An icon of a caret arrow. Clock An icon of a clock face. Close An icon of the an X shape. Close Icon An icon used to represent where to interact to collapse or dismiss a component Comment An icon of a speech bubble. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Comments An icon of a speech bubble, denoting user comments. Ellipsis An icon of 3 horizontal dots. Envelope An icon of a paper envelope. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Camera An icon of a digital camera. Home An icon of a house. Instagram An icon of the Instagram logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. Magnifying Glass An icon of a magnifying glass. Search Icon A magnifying glass icon that is used to represent the function of searching. Menu An icon of 3 horizontal lines. Hamburger Menu Icon An icon used to represent a collapsed menu. Next An icon of an arrow pointing to the right. Notice An explanation mark centred inside a circle. Previous An icon of an arrow pointing to the left. Rating An icon of a star. Tag An icon of a tag. Twitter An icon of the Twitter logo. Video Camera An icon of a video camera shape. Speech Bubble Icon A icon displaying a speech bubble WhatsApp An icon of the WhatsApp logo. Information An icon of an information logo. Plus A mathematical 'plus' symbol. Duration An icon indicating Time. Success Tick An icon of a green tick. Success Tick Timeout An icon of a greyed out success tick. Loading Spinner An icon of a loading spinner. Facebook Messenger An icon of the facebook messenger app logo. Facebook An icon of a facebook f logo. Facebook Messenger An icon of the Twitter app logo. LinkedIn An icon of the LinkedIn logo. WhatsApp Messenger An icon of the Whatsapp messenger app logo. Email An icon of an mail envelope. Copy link A decentered black square over a white square.

Specialist dogs to sniff out out hedgehogs on Barra to protect birds

Hedgehogs are among the  species identified as vulnerable by WWF Scotland.
Hedgehogs are among the species identified as vulnerable by WWF Scotland.

Specialist sniffer dogs are being sent to an island known as a vital bird haven – after a hedgehog was found for the first time.

Last week a hedgehog was found dead on the roadside on Barra.

How it arrived on the island is a mystery – though it could have been released by an animal lover unaware of the potential carnage egg-eating hedgehogs could do to ground-nesting birds such as lapwing, snipe and redshank.

It also could have hopped on to an inter island ferry.

Fears have now been raised about the implications for wildlife on Barra, and action is already being taken to prevent hedgehogs settling on the island.

Searches to be carried out

A spokesman for NatureScot said: “We have received a report of a hedgehog killed on the road on Barra which is the first record on the island.

“NatureScot staff will search the areas with trained sniffer dogs and set up a network of live traps to establish whether there more  hedgehogs are present. Any hedgehogs caught will be relocated and released in a safe location.

“Releasing mammals on islands can cause great harm to native wildlife and is treated as a serious wildlife crime.”

“Please get in touch of you live on Barra and would like to help out with the search.”

NatureScot and RSPB Scotland want to protect birds on Uist and Barra, like this lapwing, from hedgehogs. Pic supplied RSPB Scotland

A similar scheme has already been carried out on the neighbouring Uists, costing millions of pounds.

A RSPB spokesman said: “We are very concerned about the impact introduced hedgehogs are having on the fantastic native wildlife of the Uists.

“We are working with NatureScot to investigate whether it is feasible to move them off these islands, including how we might gather the significant resources that would be needed to do it.

“This evidence that hedgehogs are now on Barra is very worrying and shows the importance of biosecurity including surveillance and preventative measures to limit the spread of invasive non-native species.”

NatureScot has appealed to anyone who sees hedgehogs on Barra or North Uist to get in contact with the Uist Wader Project manager.

Hedgehogs are already being removed from the Uists to protect birds.

What’s wrong with hedgehogs?

Hedgehogs are not native to the Outer Hebrides and were introduced to South Uist in 1974. They have spread across the islands and reached a density where they damage wader populations.

Research by NatureScot and RSPB Scotland has shown that hedgehogs eating their eggs is causing significant harm to internationally important populations of ground nesting waders found in the Uists.

The Uist Wader Project has successfully removed hedgehogs from North Uist.

NatureScot and RSPB are now exploring sources of funding, to enable a full scale removal of hedgehogs from the whole of the Uists.

Five years ago it was calculated that it had cost over a £1,000-a-time to remove hedgehogs from North Uist.

Then a new bid for a staggering £3.5m to remove the remaining hedgehogs from the Uists was considered – on top of the £2.7m already spent removing 2,440 of them.

Some estimates say there could be around 4,000 hedgehogs needing to be removed.

The Uists have important colonies of nesting waders in the form of dunlin, ringed plover, redshank, snipe, lapwing and oystercatcher.

Lapwings are among the waders at risk of decline.

But they had been in decline since the mid-1980s partly due to predation by non-native hedgehogs.

Efforts to stem the decline have been in progress since 2004 – initially by culling that caused outrage, including from celebrities like Sir Paul McCartney Joanna Lumley, Sting and Brian May.

Since 2007 the animals have been trapped and translocated to the mainland.

Alien invaders

More than £16m has been spent over the past two decades trying to rid alien invaders from some of Scotland’s wildlife rich islands.

It includes over £6m that is currently being splashed out getting rid of stoats on Orkney.

Since 2007, more than 40,000 grey squirrels, American mink and black rats have been killed humanely under conservation projects.

Conversation