Kill Badgers to Save Hedgehogs

Thoughts and input on anything related to wet shaving or men's grooming.
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drmoss_ca
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Kill Badgers to Save Hedgehogs

Post by drmoss_ca »

An article in the Speccie, but inaccessible to folk without subscription. So I made an archive of it:

https://archive.ph/EuxWC
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Re: Kill Badgers to Save Hedgehogs

Post by Rufus »

It comes down to what is sustainable for both badgers and hedge hogs. Badger are much maligned, much like wolves, but they are part of nature and have a role to play in our ecosystem, just as wolves do. Wolves are being re-introduced to many regions on North America because the balance of nature became out of whack due to their misinformed slaughter. By the way, although the author of the article says she hadn’t seen a hedge hog in years until recently, my in-laws who live near Southampton, Hants, have hedge hogs in their yard every year. Their big problem are rats, which are attracted to the area by a neighbour’s chicken coop.
Bryan
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Re: Kill Badgers to Save Hedgehogs

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I smiled to myself when I saw that beavers were being reintroduced in Scotland and parts of Europe. And as I thought, the pretty illusion of cute creatures has shattered as farmers are having large areas of good land flooded by the overgrown flat-tailed rats.* And, of course, they are not allowed to trap them of prevent them destroying their farm and livelihood.
Inevitably, we have a love-hate relationship with some wildlife. A Scottish farmer, a guy trying to barbecue in his yard in Port Coquitlam (and a bear or cougar steals his planked salmon), a dog-walker in Edmonton having a tug-of-war with a coyote, or a tourist going for a swim in South Africa (and 'doing lunch' with a Great White) are all running into nature in uncomfortable ways. We feel guilty that we cleared out the big predators and then the nuisance species from the places we live in. But the lessons from the edges of our urbanizations show us that we might not like the results of romantically re-introducing that particular part of the balance of nature. Sure we like polar bears—at a distance. Would I feel quite so warm and fuzzy if I lived in Churchill? When Toronto is discovering that coyotes can be their equivalent of London's foxes, it will mean changes in the way we let pets into the garden, or how we let small children play outside. The less you have any contact with wildlife, the more likely you are to be in favour of all and any re-introductions.
I don't know if there really was an old Chinese saying to the effect of "Be careful what you ask for—you might get it," but there should have been!

C.
*I knew a man who was killed by a beaver. A Lands & Forests officer who had to blow up a dam with dynamite. Lit the fuse and got his foot stuck between the sticks so failed to "retire to a safe distance after lighting the blue touch-paper," as it used to say on fireworks. 37 years later I heard gossip that he had chosen to kill himself that way over his wife's infidelities (which, admittedly, were notorious). I prefer to think of it as the beaver's revenge.
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Re: Kill Badgers to Save Hedgehogs

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Chris, you mention coyotes becoming like London’s foxes. You may have read about the recent seven coyote attacks on humans in central Burlington, Ontario. Apparently a family of coyotes had become so inured to the presence of humans, likely due to people feeding them, that three of them randomly attacked humans in their search for a meal. The supposed three culprits in the family have now been “culled”. I frequently encounter coyotes where I live on the shores of Lake Ontario about 50 km SW of Toronto on the border with Burlington.. So far the coyotes in our area remain shy of humans and keep their distance. But there are a few idiots who continue to feed the local wildlife, especially the rabbits. The coyotes have learnt where the rabbits are fed and wait for the rabbits to come along for a bite and make a meal of them. We also have a few coywolves (cross of a coyote and wolf) in our woods. They are larger than the standard coyote, but seem a lot more shy than a coyote, fortunately.
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Re: Kill Badgers to Save Hedgehogs

Post by drmoss_ca »

A young female hiker was killed by coyotes in Cape Breton National Park's Skyline Trail in 2009. I'm not suggesting we eradicate the coyote, but if we had done so in our ignorant past, I'd be against reintroduction. Anyway, they make dreadful shaving brushes!

C.
"Je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothèse."
Pierre-Simon de Laplace
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