Taking action may have saved a hog’s life (From Basingstoke Gazette)

Taking action may have saved a hog’s life

11:40am Friday 31st August 2012 in Letters

Sir.-This is a short tale to highlight the need to be proactive with wildlife and not wait until it is too late. I am a wildlife lover but due to ignorance lost a young hedgehog’s life when I could easily have saved it.

A few days ago my husband and I saw a hoglet on our garden path, which we thought was unusual in daytime, but alarm bells did not go off (they should have done). We showed our three-year-old and thought that was the end. When we saw it the following day, we started to raise questions and I looked up on the Internet about baby hogs and it says everywhere they cannot be left as they are surely either unwell or orphaned.

Another day went by and I just hoped it had survived but sadly hours later my husband found it dead.

If we had taken it immediately in a shoebox lined with shredded newspaper to a wildlife rescue centre, it would most probably have survived.

Please could anyone who finds a baby hedgehog out in the daytime phone the nearest rescue centre for advice. Hedgehog numbers, as has been well reported have declined dramatically in the last few decades and could well become extinct in this country in the next 20 years if we do not change things right now.

-Mrs Elizabeth Susans, Hackwood Lane, Cliddesden, Basingstoke.