Berger Anne
Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research, Alfred-Kowalke-Straße 17, 10315 Berlin, Germany.
Animals (Basel). 2023 Dec 22;14(1):57. doi: 10.3390/ani14010057.
The number of European hedgehogs () is in long-term decline across Europe. Recently, an additional threat to hedgehogs' lives has been cutting injuries caused by garden care equipment, but to date, there have been no reliable data on their spatial and temporal occurrence as well as characteristics such as mortality rate. Usually, found injured hedgehogs are admitted to care centres. In this study, data on hedgehogs with cutting injuries were collected from care centres throughout Germany. Over a period of 16 months, data on a total of 370 hedgehogs with cut injuries were reported by 71 care centres. At least 60% of these hedgehogs were found more than 12 h after the accident and at least 47% did not survive as a result of the injury. The comparatively high mortality rate coupled with a possible high number of unreported cases of hedgehogs with laceration injuries show that these accidents pose an additional, serious danger to hedgehogs, both impacting the welfare of individual animals and having a broader effect on the conservation potential of this species. Moreover, the data collected objectify the current discussion on the need for possible technical or political solutions to prevent such injuries.
欧洲刺猬的数量在整个欧洲呈长期下降趋势。最近，刺猬生命面临的又一威胁是园艺护理设备造成的割伤，但迄今为止，关于此类割伤在空间和时间上的发生情况以及死亡率等特征，尚无可靠数据。通常，被发现受伤的刺猬会被送往护理中心。在本研究中，从德国各地的护理中心收集了刺猬遭受割伤的数据。在16个月的时间里，71个护理中心共报告了370只刺猬遭受割伤的数据。这些刺猬中至少60%是在事故发生12小时后被发现的，并且至少47%因伤死亡。相对较高的死亡率以及可能大量未报告的刺猬撕裂伤病例表明，这些事故对刺猬构成了额外的严重危险，既影响个体动物的福利，也对该物种的保护潜力产生更广泛的影响。此外，所收集的数据使当前关于是否需要采取可能的技术或政治解决方案来防止此类伤害的讨论更加客观。
