Appeal to save hedgehogs

Campaigners want to relocate the 5,000 hedgehogs

The Scottish Parliament has agreed to hear an appeal from supporters of 5,000 hedgehogs threatened with extermination.

The board of Scottish Natural Heritage (SNH) sanctioned the slaughter in an effort to help preserve rare birds on the Uist isles.

They are due to be killed by lethal injection in a few weeks time.

Members of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society will appear before the parliament's petitions committee in Edinburgh on Tuesday.

Hedgehogs were introduced in 1974

Supporters have mounted a determined campaign to save them.

The campaigners hope the appeal to the Scottish Parliament will buy them time.

Representatives have requested the petitions committee give them a chance to collect and move the hedgehogs to new homes on the mainland before extermination begins.

The seven member committee will hear their petition before taking evidence from SNH.

The conservation body decided the hedgehogs would have to be destroyed because they were eating the eggs of rare waders.

A handful of hedgehogs were first introduced to the Uists in 1974 to help control slugs and snails in islanders' gardens.