Badgers and Hedgehogs
Do Badgers Eat Hedgehogs, the Harrowing Truth is Yes
Asymmetric Intraguild Predatory Relationship at Work
Since moving up to this area of Norfolk over thirty years ago we have been welcoming wildlife into our garden. We have been attracting in the daytime a variety of bird species, insects, squirrels, numerous small rodents and the occasional muntjac deer. Additionally, at twilight a family of hedgehogs were occasionally seen.
A few years ago we began to set up a cameras in a couple of nest boxes. We spent many hours watching the behaviour of the Great and Blue tits during the nesting season. This has now been extended to a number of trail and bullet cameras monitoring the night time activities. Initially to capture the behaviour of the hedgehogs. But surprisingly our first night’s video captured both the hedgehogs and an injured fox. We think that she may have been a regular night visitor for some time.
That is now two years ago. Since then it seems that both our garden and a few others in the neighbourhood are home to nightly visits from muntjac and roe deer, a number of foxes and badgers. During the first lockdown we discovered that not a stones throw from the house we had a large badger sett and a number of fox earths. Which explained why we were seeing the the foxes and badgers regularly.
Our Regular Visitors
What became increasingly interesting was the interaction between the species and the animal behaviour that can be captured. Often we saw different animals taking advantages of feeding stations in the gardens at the same time. Also how the weather appeared tp influence the time and frequency of the visits.
Last year with the badgers turning up nightly we soon realised from the images that we a had sow feeding young. This years’ visitor seems to be a new member of the clan. Last years’ badger did little digging in the garden for one of its main food items… worms, This one has taken to hunting for soil invertebrates and digging small holes around the garden. Although sadly the hedgehogs have now disappeared the reason became apparent a few days ago.
The badgers’ hunt for worms has brought it into direct completion with the hedgehog population. It’s known and well documented from the remains of Hedgehog carcasses that Badgers will kill and eat hedgehogs, Early this year someone on the Village Facebook page asked a question about a carcass that had been found. A number of replies suggesting foxes, the local cat population and the possibility of badgers being responsible.
With the cameras out each night the footage captured recently showed the reality of what happens when the two species compete for the same food. They have what is known as an ‘Asymmetric Intraguild Predatory Relationship’. Where they are competitors for the same food. Which has in our gardens resulted in fewer hedgehogs in fact non recorded since this video in our garden.