With the exception of a few local bats, New Zealand has no native land-based mammals. Its bird population adapted to this state of affairs – some, like the Kiwi, are flightless, or nest on the ground. When stoats, cats, possums and rats were introduced, they wreaked havoc: crunching down rare insects, killing fresh-hatched chicks, and slurping the eggs of ground-nesting birds.
Hedgehogs are also key culprits. “It’s increasingly coming to light how much damage they can do,” says Nick Foster, a PhD candidate at the University of Otago who is researching hedgehogs. A single, dedicated hedgehog will consume numerous native lizards, bird eggs, and wētā – a kind of large flightless cricket found only in New Zealand. One study found 283 wētā legs in a single hedgehog stomach. “That means in a 24-hour period this hedgehog has guzzled up 60 or so animals,” Foster says. “It’s a banquet.”
The mission to try to drive hedgehogs from protected habitats is seen as critical in New Zealand. The country is
running an ambitious campaign to eradicate introduced predators by 2050, using a mixture of trapping, hunting, and poison.
