Humans are a hedgehog predator also, given the amount of hedgehogs that die due to cars, we aren’t allowed to avoid a hedgehog crossing if we are on a busy road, only people on quieter roads do so, even if the law says we aren’t supposed to, only dogs have that protection. Which makes sure that you can’t kill another human for the sake of a small animal, which makes sense. If I was driving and I had the choice of bumping into another car to save a small animal, unfortunately I would have to choose not to bump into another car as the risk of causing damage to another human, which would be an unbearable situation to put yourself in.
But yes, unfortunately badgers need food – just like a killer whale needs seals for food – it’s just nature, and we can’t interfere with it really – we can only take more responsibility as a human and curb our behaviours to protect nature as far as we can, but then leave nature to get the food that they need, even though it’s very upsetting for us.
I have just, after a year, started to make friends with my local fox (friends as in I’m more ok with it and feeling less angry with it for being around and not having murderous thoughts towards the fox, not friends as in going up to it and petting it). But all I can do with the fox, is make the feeding station more and more fox proof as time goes on – as they are very clever and find different ways of out smarting you, I have found – and the advice on this forum is generally do not feed the foxes, but I have decided to leave a little bit out now and again, because after one year of not feeding the foxes at all, they still come into my garden every single night.
I would be very unhappy if I saw a badger in my area, and if I rescue a hedgehog again I’d tell the rescue centre that I have a badger in my area and they would decide if the hedgehog would come back to me or not. But for me, in my area, there is just foxes, and the rescue centre know about this, and they are still willing to put back the hedgehogs that I have rescued in my area. They have foxes too in their own gardens and yes it’s an issue – but we can’t do much about it. We can’t shield the hedgehogs away from every danger out there, because to so they would just end up in captivity and have very miserable lives. They aren’t like dogs who live like very comfortable lives in our houses, they would just be horrendously miserable.
Nature is cruel, but then us humans are also very dangerous – but at least we can have the ability to curb ourselves a bit to protect nature.
