Hedgehog study to assess danger of robot lawn-mowers

Hedgehog numbers have fallen by up to 50% in rural areas since 2000, according to one report

Are robot lawn-mowers the latest deadly threat to plummeting hedgehog populations? That's certainly what many in northern Europe think.

It's a part of the world where there are plenty of automatic lawn-mowers and plenty of concerned hedgehog lovers who say the machines are a disaster.

Every spring, social media and local papers erupt with warnings that the robots are hacking, slashing and even killing hedgehogs as they emerge from hibernation.

The British Hedgehog Preservation Society, based in Ludlow, Shropshire, decided to sponsor a researcher to find out what was really going on.

As robot lawn-mowers become ever more popular, if they do pose a risk, the society needs to know what it can do about it.

Some lawn-mowers proved safe, while others were found capable of delivering life-threatening injuries

Dr Sophie Lund Rasmussen from the University of Oxford wanted to start by finding out what sort of injuries a robot lawn-mower can actually cause a hog.

She gathered 18 different lawn-mowers and a collection of test subjects.

Nasty injuries

No live hedgehogs were harmed in this research, rather the animals used were already dead and collected from local rescue centres.

It turned out some robot lawn-mowers can indeed inflict nasty life-threatening injuries. But others deliver little more than a bump and perhaps a bruise. Smaller mowers, those with retractable blades and front wheel drive models were safer.

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The aim now is to work with manufacturers and to eventually give hedgehog-friendly mowers some sort of official badge so shoppers can look out for them.

But these injuries can also be caused by strimmers or even pet dogs. Even if we make the robot lawn-mowers safer, there are still many more problems our dwindling hedgehog population faces.