Press releases

Cut-off legs or snouts, which do not always lead to immediate death, but often cause the animals to starve to death later. This is how drastic the danger posed by robotic lawnmowers with their sharp blades to domestic hedgehogs in our gardens is, and which hedgehog protection associations are reporting more and more frequently. However, neither the spikes nor the curling up, with which the insectivores can defend themselves against the majority of their natural enemies, help against this relatively new man-made source of danger.

Our native hedgehog lives in large parts of Western and Central Europe. They can grow up to 30 centimetres in size and prefer varied cultivated landscapes with hedges, bushes, orchards, pastures and small copses. Due to the clearing of the landscape in the course of the industrialization of agriculture, many traditional habitats disappeared and the hedgehog increasingly shifted its habitat to gardens and parks. The native hedgehog feeds mainly on insects, beetles and caterpillars. In the wild, hedgehogs can live up to eight years.

Activity time and hazard

Hedgehogs hibernate from October and November until April. In the summer months, hedgehogs are mainly active at dusk and at night. During the day, they sleep hidden in one of their nests.

However, in the last ten years, the population of native hedgehogs has declined by over 30 percent in some cases, and over 50 percent in Bavaria. The hedgehog is therefore now classified as "potentially endangered" by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). The main causes of the population decline are habitat loss and accidents involving road traffic and robotic mowers.

Prevention of robotic lawnmower accidents

The danger posed by these practical garden helpers can be minimized by two simple measures. As domestic hedgehogs are active at dusk and at night, it is often sufficient to only operate robotic lawnmowers during the day to avoid endangering them in your own garden. It is also advisable not to leave robotic lawnmowers running unattended. In addition to hedgehogs, other species such as amphibians also benefit from these measures, as they are also often caught by the robots.

If you want to do something more, you can mow part of the lawn only twice a year and create piles of dead wood and brushwood. Hedgehogs, insects and birds will find much more food there than on short-cropped lawns.