Impacts of removing badgers on localised counts of hedgehogs

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Abstract

Experimental evidence of the interactions among mammalian predators that eat or compete with one another is rare, due to the ethical and logistical challenges of managing wild populations in a controlled and replicated way. Here, we report on the opportunistic use of a replicated and controlled culling experiment (the Randomised Badger Culling Trial) to investigate the relationship between two sympatric predators: European badgers Meles meles and western European hedgehogs Erinaceus europaeus. In areas of preferred habitat (amenity grassland), counts of hedgehogs more than doubled over a 5-year period from the start of badger culling (from 0.9 ha-1 pre-cull to 2.4 ha -1 post-cull), whereas hedgehog counts did not change where there was no badger culling (0.3-0.3 hedgehogs ha-1). This trial provides experimental evidence for mesopredator release as an outcome of management of a top predator. © 2014 Trewby et al.

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Trewby, I. D., Young, R., McDonald, R. A., Wilson, G. J., Davison, J., Walker, N., … Delahay, R. J. (2014). Impacts of removing badgers on localised counts of hedgehogs. PLoS ONE, 9(4). https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0095477

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