Last week it was my turn to catch the family cold! Monday I battled through a day long (and deeply fascinating) meeting online as part of my role in helping manage the research that is being funded by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and the People’s Trust for Endangered Species … Tuesday I tried to work and failed, Wednesday I just decided I would sleep.
Oh, the best laid plans of hedgehogs and men …
I was woken to the news that a company, Ferber Painting, was selling poison, specifically for hedgehogs. They had a whole host of other species, badgers, snakes, birds, weasels on their hit list. To top it all, the website ended .co.uk, which suggested that it was trading here … and the order form showed the prices in pounds! This roused my ire somewhat so I put out a tweet - do follow me if you want to see what other strange things are going on - which then took off and has now had over 1.3 million impressions (I don’t really know what impressions mean, but it is far more than any other tweet of mine). With the BHPS and Hedgehog Street campaign we reached out - got messages back from MPs, I had an outraged Pam Ayres and Chris Packham online.
So what of the company - Ferber Painting? They claimed they had been hacked - but that was something they said back in November 2022, when this was first noticed (not by me). Then last week they told ITV news, when they were called in the UAE - where they seem to be based that the hedgehog product is “a bait. If you want to use it it works with a trap. The bait doesn’t kill the hedgehog itself it’s the trap that will kill the hedgehog.” This was despite the packaging visible online saying, ‘The fastest treatment, death of hedgehog in 5 minutes after ingesting the product.’
Now this seems to be rather contradictory - is it going to cause death to a hedgehog in 5 minutes? Or is it a lure to a trap? Was the company hacked and its original aim to sell paint to the world overwhelmed by some evil-doers hell bent on making them seem like murdering %&@%!^$? Or, as I was beginning to think, more likely to be a complete scam … with those wishing harm to some rather beautiful and in many cases protected, wildlife, unsuspectingly handing over their money in return for nothing …
Whatever their intent, the uproar has certainly had an impact - their website now no longer shows it selling any poisons for mammals and birds - just for invertebrates. But the mystery remains …
What can we learn from this? Certainly we know that companies who threaten our wildlife will get a pretty robust reaction from members of the public! We have seen that the anger gets a reaction - never mind the nonsense Ferber communicated to ITV, we forced them to change their website and remove the offensive items.
When we act together, we create change. Let us not forget that when we look to the developers who seek to put profit before nature (and in particular, hedgehogs) … I am thrilled that we have managed to make a dent in the way some developers act - getting them to include hedgehog highways in new developments. But I know, and you know, that is NOT ENOUGH. While we did not succeed in getting a change to the level of protection hedgehogs receive, I wonder whether we, together, can encourage the developers to treat hedgehogs as if they were that well protected? More on this soon …
Oh - and Happy New Year - sorry it is a bit late!
As ever, and fully appreciating that this is a lean time, any coins massively appreciated in my hat.