Published in
Public Library of Science, PLoS ONE, 4(9), p. e95477, 2014
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0095477
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- Public Library of Science
- [www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov] | PDF
- [eprints.soton.ac.uk]
- [ore.exeter.ac.uk] | PDF
- [europepmc.org] | PDF
- [www.researchgate.net] | PDF
- [www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov] | PDF
- [www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov] | PDF
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Impacts of Removing Badgers on Localised Counts of Hedgehogs
,
Robbie A. McDonald,
Gavin J. Wilson,
John Davison,
Neil Walker,
Andrew Robertson,
C. Patrick Doncaster,
C. Patrick Doncaster,
Richard J. Delahay
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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.