Hedgehog rescue centre urges gardeners to use natural slug repellants

A hedgehog rescue centre is appealing to the public to consider the spiky but vulnerable creatures when laying out slug pellets, after being presented with fatally poisoned hedgehogs in recent weeks.

In some cases, the hedgehogs, which are protected, had ingested rat poison, and others had eaten slugs or snails poisoned with metaldehyde, a compound substance commonly found in the cheaper form of slug pellets, according to Hedgehog Rescue Dublin.

Ecologist Yvonne McCann, who has been rescuing the nocturnal creatures at Rush, Co Dublin, since 2013, said cheaper slug pellets are “lethal” to the furtive creatures.