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Robot Lawnmowers Are Killing Hedgehogs (wired.com)

Posted by msmash on from the save-the-hedgehogs dept.

An anonymous reader shares a report: While Americans still wrangle their overgrown lawns by pushing or riding a lawnmower, many Europeans have handed off that responsibility to robots. These beefy, Roomba-like mowers loop their way around a yard, keeping grass trim and neat. To many of their users, the bots are endearing. Their owners give them names or cover them in decals of ladybugs or bumblebees. But the sentimentality only goes so far, because these blades-on-wheels have also been slicing up something other than grass: hedgehogs.

Erika Heller, a long-time hedgehog advocate with a Swiss nonprofit called Igelstation Winterthur, estimates that nearly half the hedgehogs brought to the group during the last couple years were injured by robot lawnmowers. These injuries include limb amputation, cut bellies, or even scalping. And that's not including the ones that have been killed outright. "The ones that have died we don't see, because they don't get brought here." In the United States, despite a wealth of children's toys and clothing featuring hedgehogs, the only live animals you're likely to see are in the zoo or, more controversially, kept as pets. But in Europe, wild hedgehogs are beloved. They're popular in European folklore; there's even a famous British poem about a hedgehog killed by a lawn mower.

4 of 215 comments (clear)

  1. They have to practice on something by FFOMelchior · · Score: 5, Funny

    before they move up to humans

    1. Re:They have to practice on something by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Informative

      My neighbor has one, and they are slow, with small blades, and little power. The risk is way less than a human controlled powered lawn mower kicking up rocks or debris. I can't imagine it injuring anyone unless they purposely went up to it and stuck their toes into the blades, and that would be difficult since the blades are not exposed.

      The low power is not a problem: it can just take longer, since no human time is involved. It will periodically return to the docking station to recharge.

      I use a much better solution: I replaced my lawn with gravel, desert shrubs, and cacti. No grass to mow, and a 75% reduction in my water bill.

  2. It is how it always begins by Comrade+Ogilvy · · Score: 5, Funny

    First the robots came for the hedgehogs, but I did not speak out because I was not a hedgehog.

  3. Re:How much of an issue is this really? by Vulch · · Score: 5, Informative

    Hedgehogs are nocturnal. Humans mowing lawns tend to do so in daylight so few problems, but I suspect people may set the robot mowers to run overnight when the hedgies are out and about foraging.