Sick Hedgehogs Attract Ticks
From the Yourkshire Post Today Saturday, September 3, 2006
HEDGEHOGS TICK UP A CURE FOR DISEASE
Julie Hemmings
A HEDGEHOG sanctuary run as a hobby by a university lecturer has helped her team to make an important scientific breakthrough.
In her free time, Hull University lecturer Toni Bunnell uses her expertise in mammal conservation to nurse sick hedgehogs back to health at her home in York.
And focusing research on the prickly creatures has helped Dr Bunnell and her team to identify how an odour secreted by sick mammals, including humans, attracts ticks.
The discovery could have wide-ranging implications for health services in the developing world, where many people die from diseases carried by insects.
Dr Bunnell, a lecturer in physiology in the department of applied health studies, has been caring for hedgehogs for York RSPCA for the past 16 years. She takes home about 45 hedgehogs each year and currently has six recuperating, ready to be released back into the wild.
"I have a background as a biologist but like looking after sick animals, like most people do," said Dr Bunnell. Dr Bunnell's current research is due for publication later this year but already has won an award, at an international conference "chemical signals in vertebrates" at Chester University in July.
Earlier work by Dr Bunnell showed only 14 per cent of hedgehogs carry ticks, a finding which challenged previous claims all hedgehogs carry ticks and sparked a study investigating whether an odour from sick hedgehogs attracted the insects. Dr Bunnell then began to investigate a link between the odour produced by hedgehog droppings, the health of the hedgehog and the attractiveness of certain odours to the ticks.
"The study clearly demonstrates the value of academic research projects and the importance of using this level of knowledge and expertise to identify potential solutions to a wide variety of problems," she said. "In this instance, the findings of the study offer the distinct possibility of helping to reduce the incidence of tick-borne diseases, a serious problem in Third-World countries.
"This is a real break-through. We knew about the substance but nobody knew what its function was in the circumstances." Dr Bunnell is the principal investigator of the study which was was funded by Hull Environment Research Institute.
Anyone finding a sick hedgehog should not give it milk or fish – cat or dog food is better, and water to drink. The animals should not be placed near a source of heat and anyone finding an animal in distress to call the RSPCA.
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Check out the article for some cute pictures of European Hedgehogs