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Chapter 1: What impact do robotic lawnmowers have on hedgehog populations?
As you know, we're living in an age of convenience, of smart homes, AI and labour-saving gadgets that promise to do all the hard work for us. And let's be honest, unless you're particularly green-fingered, how many of us really want to head out and mow the lawn every week? Well, if you don't, no problem. There's a solution, a quiet one, the robotic lawnmower.
And they're becoming more and more common in gardens here in Ireland and across Europe as people embrace automated living. But, and there's always a but, hedgehogs, once a familiar sight in gardens across Ireland and Europe, are now in worrying decline. Since 2024, they've been listed as near threatened on the International Union for Conservation of Nature's Red List.
after a drop in numbers of at least 30% over the past decade.
Chapter 2: What statistics highlight the decline of hedgehogs in Europe?
What's that got to do with the robotic lawnmowers? Well, as this technology quietly gets on with the job, often at night, there's a growing concern about the unintended consequences for wildlife, especially hedgehogs.
Chapter 3: What unintended consequences do nighttime mowing robots pose for wildlife?
Now, in Germany, mayors in several cities have even moved to ban the nighttime use of these machines to protect nocturnal animals from being injured or killed. Those moves have been influenced in part by research carried out by Dr. Anne Berger from Germany's Leibniz Institute for Zoo and Wildlife Research. We spoke with her earlier.
Hedgehogs are one of the most beloved animals we have here in Europe, but the populations of the hedgehogs, they decline really drastically. We also have investigated what are the reasons for this, and a kind of new threat for the hedgehogs are the so-called mooring robots, and that's why we had some research on this problem with the dilemma with the hedgehogs and the mooring robots.
Now, a mowing robot, for the benefit of the listener, that's never one ever heard of a mowing robot or seen one. I'm sure you've seen on TV the adverts for the robotic vacuum cleaners that go around your house while you're out at the bingo, wherever you happen to be.
Well, it's the same sort of thing, only it goes around and cuts your grass while you're not there or while you're otherwise occupied. So that is an issue. God, I hate to say it. Is it killing the hedgehogs? What's it doing exactly?
Yeah, the problem with the mowing robots is what you already said, that they often work without any observation from humans, so automatically. They are also allowed to work at night. The hedgehogs are nocturnal animals, then they also curl into balls. And they are threatened and they don't run away.
And that's really a problem for the hedgehogs because at night when they meet such mobile robots at the meadow, then yeah, it really comes to deadly accidents.
And how many incidents have you had reported or discovered?
I collected in Germany, I collected for 16 months in different hedgehog stations and we reported 370 accidents with injured hedgehogs. The heavy thing was that About the half of these hedgehogs died from these injuries. And also more than 60% of these hedgehogs was the fact that the wound was older than 12 hours, sometimes also older than days.
The wound.
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Chapter 4: What research has been conducted on hedgehogs and robotic lawnmowers?
And that's why, yeah, often they orientate to the thing that they can't, yeah, they don't know what is it, which comes narrowly. And also keep in mind that with ultrasound, you also disturb other animals like bats or mice or whatever. So they are also able to hear ultrasound.
Dr Berger, nobody wants to harm hedgehogs. I would assume that the people who found these dead or dying or severely injured hedgehogs must have been horrified at what their machines had done. Obviously, there was no intention to harm the hedgehogs. Has there been much public demand for this problem to be solved? Are the public getting behind this?
Yes, a lot. So we had efforts to create a law for whole Germany to have this nighttime ban of mooring robots. But yeah, unfortunately, it failed two years ago. And now all the different districts in Germany must apply for this nighttime ban and enforce this law. on a case-by-case basis in Germany. But we have a lot of really success. We have that called allgemeine VerfĆ¼gung.
Maybe we can translate it as a general order. And we have now more than 50, 60 districts and cities in Germany where we have this nighttime ban. And now we are really working also with the federal states and the state parliaments that we maybe have this rule also in the different federal states of Germany.
Dr. Ann Berger, fascinating story that night, isn't it? It is. It's concerning. You see the pressure these hedgehogs are under. It's a species that seems to be threatened in Ireland as well. I'm seeing fewer of them. I've certainly seen more robotic lawnmowers in recent weeks than I have actual hedgehogs.
I don't think necessarily the two are connected in Ireland because I'm not sure how much of a thing... nocturnal grass cutting is in Ireland. It tends to get quite wet. Nocturnal grass cutting. But it just shows how people can have a knock-on effect on nature without ever realising. Nobody bears the hedgehog's any ill will, but it's a problem, obviously. It is.
And Terry Flanagan, we're going to join him now. Terry, you have hedgehogs in your garden, if I'm not mistaken, or you did.
Yeah, I certainly did, Derek. We've been in this house now for 30 odd years. And I would have said for the first 10 or 15 years that we had hedgehogs regularly in the garden. In the last couple of years, I don't see them so often, not even in the estate. I don't think I've seen a hedgehog in the estate for the last... I don't know, three or four years or so.
So I think that they tend to be doing better at the moment in gardens, not particularly in my garden. I think gardens are much more important to them now. I think that comes true in a lot of the research as well. But sadly, in my garden, of course, I'm just one garden. I don't see a lot of them here.
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