April 4, 2026 • 10 mins
In the garden today, Pete and Ruud had a quick chat about why we need to lower the hedgehog numbers in New Zealand.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the Resident Builder podcast with Peter Wolfcamp
from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Be right, changing gear, we're going to talk with how
are you, sir?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
I'm good, Thank you. You're changing gear. I might do too.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
You're right.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, I know you're not driving for a little while
with your knee, so let's not be changing gear right
now unless you're knee bike.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yes, but even that causes a lot of noise. I know,
because every time I go down with the thing of
my my bike, I go shit, and everybody knows when
I'm on the bike. That hohots men.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Well, I hope the recovery is going. Well. Hey, look,
so last week on the show you were talking about
trapping in the garden and so on, and mentioned the
fact that you had trapped a hedgehog and three three
of them.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Okay, yeah, yeah, I mean that stuff works. That's stuff
by Selena goal Medage.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
The Ulio areos yea aureo aureio biscuits, what I mean, Yeah,
they worked and still work fabulous, and not just on
these on these things, but also on on mice and rats.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Well, gosh, it was just amazing. So hedgehogs got done.
And then why you got a call from John or
John and Beth stay.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Why do you rate the killing of hedgehogs? Which I
thought was a bit unfair and and so I did reply,
But you obviously had a chat with them as well.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
No, yeah, well it's more than that. It's I can
imagine why John rang up because I rang them up
to I thought, blow it, I'm going to do this,
and you know, and this is what you get when
you talk to New Zealand. There's even people from the
UK like they are and they say, what are you
doing with our hedgehogs? If you like? And I totally
agree with that because as a Dutchman this is the
(02:00):
same thing. We have them too, and so why are
we doing all this? So I started a chat with
him about it. The very first thing, Peter was that
when I was doing Kiwi research in the nineteen eighties,
we realized that hedgehogs are at least competing with Kiwi
food for fifteen maybe seventeen percent. So our natives, Yeah,
(02:26):
our natives are really really basically getting done by these
important things. We've got to be a bit careful with that.
This number one, yeah, and that's those things are important.
So I've just written last night, a three point thing
in terms of the science, how scientists work on this
(02:46):
particular thing. And you can give it to anybody that
wants to get on your website. And it's really cool
if you think about it. So the question now is
why why not? Well, first of all, the fact is
that they are actually quite a pain in the bum
those hedgehogs. They really eat our native insects. They read,
(03:10):
they need and eat our native creatures that live in websites.
If you're like on the ground or just within reach, man,
they do a lot of damage. And this is quite
something that people quite often don't understand. Yeah, let's go one, and.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I guess too because of their defensive system, they don't
have a lot of presences. I mean, what's gonna eat
a hedgehog in New Zealand anyway?
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Oh the well, well the harrys might. Wow, harriers have
have a goal yeap, yep. Yeah, bit tricky because they're
quite prickly hedgehogs, as you can imagine.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I was going to say, you know, I mean, you know,
if we're thinking about like antio craft missiles and things
like that, that's that's They've got lots of them.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Absolutely there you go. So there is all that sort
of stuff happening as well. But then I started doing
some re urch on that Peete and I sound that
in the UK, those hedgehogs are actually in trouble because
those hedgehogs are being killed by cars if they over
a road. Where the hedgehog acrosses the road, basically they
(04:23):
quite often go number one boom and that's it. So
then I read it's an absolutely amazing way the UK
have worked on a system by wish they can prevent
the hedgehogs being killed. And you do that by getting
some really important and lovely materials that you can put
(04:43):
near on the cars. If you like that, make a
eighty I think it was an eighty material and eighty
gram yell that stops the hedgehogs from crossing the road.
They get warned, they turn around and they don't get
get caught or in this case killed by all these
witches in the UK. So we learn these things at
(05:05):
the same time as thinking what are we going to
do with them? So there's all these positive things happening
at the same time. I like that because if you
have an eighty six killo hertz noise that's when they go.
But if it's only twenty kilowet noise, yes, then basically
they get done. Yeah. See, so you put these things
(05:28):
on cars and you stop them from being killed by
the drivers. In the UK, it's all these things that
you suddenly come across and I think that's really really neat,
really nice.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, And I think too, it's one of those things
that's about context, doesn't it that In the end hedgehogs
which are native to the Netherlands and to the UK,
that's where you would fight for their protection and introduce species.
I don't know who ever loved possums, but we don't
love them here. Maybe where they came Where did possums
(06:00):
come from?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Actually the possum came from, Yes, from Australia, from Australia
and Australian.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And the cool thing is
what I did with possums with kids in schools was
good because they the kids that it is actually only
made a last five to ten years in the air.
New Zealand Environment Trust. We would get the kids to
catch those possums, use the fur and use that as
a material you put inside the walls off your buildings.
(06:28):
That you are building like your your rooms. Yeah yeah,
are you aware of that? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, no, And you can buy possum socks, eh, that
sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
There, you go. Yeah, yeah. But the kids decided that
if we put it inside our houses on the West coast,
we got we are. We are no longer hassled with
very very cold, cold rooms. And it was just another one.
So all these things are getting together. I love that.
It's so nice.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, now with all the research that you've done for it,
because I've had quick reading through it as well. So
what I'll do is I'll send it to my mate
who will put it up on my website. So resident
builder dot co dot nz will add it as a blog.
Might take a couple of days or so, but it
will be there as a blog for people to read
(07:15):
because there is some really fascinating stuff there and around
the whole you know, this is that whole ultrasonic thing,
right that if there's a way of making crossing the
road and tolerable for them, then that's a great way
of protecting them where they should live, as opposed to
here where they don't.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yeah. And the nice thing too is and I think
I think they'll be listening to this that The nice
thing too is that here two UK people and two
or three news what do you call it, Dutch people
are actually working together on these things in a totally
different way simply by having a look at what is
actually happening, you know what, who does what, and how
(07:54):
do we are we work this out properly. It's really cool.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Because I think in the UK I might have seen
something like on Clarkson's farm or something like that, where
you know, there's a genuine concern in the countryside that
the population had dropped to a level that it might
not be sustainable anymore for hedgehogs.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
That's right, that's right. And you know we've done the
same with the here's another example that you like as
a gardener too. You should really know the fact that
we've got four different species of bumblebees in New Zealand,
right four and they all came from England and they
were all introduced into New Zealand because we needed some
(08:32):
preaches that could actually do the work for bumbles, you know,
and native bees to get all these flowers and all
the crops done for the for the future, you know,
milk and all that sort of stuff. So here you go.
We have these four species and they are Three of
them do reasonably well, the postailed or the restorers, the
(08:56):
ruderal bumblebee, and the bumblebee the who torum. But the
one that doesn't work very well is the one called
the short haired one, which is actually absolutely be rare
at the moment. And I work at that school in
Techapole with that particular species because that's one of the
few places where the girls do in the world. And
basically all these species are being looked after by people
(09:19):
that grow tomatoes and all that sort of stuff. No,
but the short he had had bumblebee is so rare
that we're actually doing something about it to make it
come back to life in large numbers. And I do
the school kids and we tell them all that once
we've got all these things going here in our school
ground and we build built returns for places where we
(09:41):
can grow the right plants for these particular bubblebies, then
we can get them back in numbers. And then when
we get them back in numbers, I say to the kids,
we send them back to the UK and that the
kids go like, now.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
You know absolutely, So what I'll do is the pace
that you've written for me that you sent to me.
I'll make sure it goes up on my website and
people on neverlocks a resident builder dot co dot nz.
Thanks Rude and look after yourself. We'll be back next Sunday.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
For more from the Resident Builder with Peter Wolfcamp. Listen
live to News Talk zet B on Sunday mornings from six,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
You're listening to the Resident Builder podcast with Peter Wolfcamp
from News Talks.
Speaker 2 (00:11):
Be right, changing gear, we're going to talk with how
are you, sir?
Speaker 3 (00:18):
I'm good, Thank you. You're changing gear. I might do too.
Speaker 4 (00:21):
You're right.
Speaker 2 (00:23):
Well, I know you're not driving for a little while
with your knee, so let's not be changing gear right
now unless you're knee bike.
Speaker 3 (00:31):
Yes, but even that causes a lot of noise. I know,
because every time I go down with the thing of
my my bike, I go shit, and everybody knows when
I'm on the bike. That hohots men.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
Well, I hope the recovery is going. Well. Hey, look,
so last week on the show you were talking about
trapping in the garden and so on, and mentioned the
fact that you had trapped a hedgehog and three three
of them.
Speaker 3 (01:02):
Okay, yeah, yeah, I mean that stuff works. That's stuff
by Selena goal Medage.
Speaker 4 (01:06):
The Ulio areos yea aureo aureio biscuits, what I mean, Yeah,
they worked and still work fabulous, and not just on
these on these things, but also on on mice and rats.
Speaker 3 (01:20):
Well, gosh, it was just amazing. So hedgehogs got done.
And then why you got a call from John or
John and Beth stay.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
Why do you rate the killing of hedgehogs? Which I
thought was a bit unfair and and so I did reply,
But you obviously had a chat with them as well.
Speaker 3 (01:40):
No, yeah, well it's more than that. It's I can
imagine why John rang up because I rang them up
to I thought, blow it, I'm going to do this,
and you know, and this is what you get when
you talk to New Zealand. There's even people from the
UK like they are and they say, what are you
doing with our hedgehogs? If you like? And I totally
agree with that because as a Dutchman this is the
(02:00):
same thing. We have them too, and so why are
we doing all this? So I started a chat with
him about it. The very first thing, Peter was that
when I was doing Kiwi research in the nineteen eighties,
we realized that hedgehogs are at least competing with Kiwi
food for fifteen maybe seventeen percent. So our natives, Yeah,
(02:26):
our natives are really really basically getting done by these
important things. We've got to be a bit careful with that.
This number one, yeah, and that's those things are important.
So I've just written last night, a three point thing
in terms of the science, how scientists work on this
(02:46):
particular thing. And you can give it to anybody that
wants to get on your website. And it's really cool
if you think about it. So the question now is
why why not? Well, first of all, the fact is
that they are actually quite a pain in the bum
those hedgehogs. They really eat our native insects. They read,
(03:10):
they need and eat our native creatures that live in websites.
If you're like on the ground or just within reach, man,
they do a lot of damage. And this is quite
something that people quite often don't understand. Yeah, let's go one, and.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
I guess too because of their defensive system, they don't
have a lot of presences. I mean, what's gonna eat
a hedgehog in New Zealand anyway?
Speaker 3 (03:38):
Oh the well, well the harrys might. Wow, harriers have
have a goal yeap, yep. Yeah, bit tricky because they're
quite prickly hedgehogs, as you can imagine.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
I was going to say, you know, I mean, you know,
if we're thinking about like antio craft missiles and things
like that, that's that's They've got lots of them.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Absolutely there you go. So there is all that sort
of stuff happening as well. But then I started doing
some re urch on that Peete and I sound that
in the UK, those hedgehogs are actually in trouble because
those hedgehogs are being killed by cars if they over
a road. Where the hedgehog acrosses the road, basically they
(04:23):
quite often go number one boom and that's it. So
then I read it's an absolutely amazing way the UK
have worked on a system by wish they can prevent
the hedgehogs being killed. And you do that by getting
some really important and lovely materials that you can put
(04:43):
near on the cars. If you like that, make a
eighty I think it was an eighty material and eighty
gram yell that stops the hedgehogs from crossing the road.
They get warned, they turn around and they don't get
get caught or in this case killed by all these
witches in the UK. So we learn these things at
(05:05):
the same time as thinking what are we going to
do with them? So there's all these positive things happening
at the same time. I like that because if you
have an eighty six killo hertz noise that's when they go.
But if it's only twenty kilowet noise, yes, then basically
they get done. Yeah. See, so you put these things
(05:28):
on cars and you stop them from being killed by
the drivers. In the UK, it's all these things that
you suddenly come across and I think that's really really neat,
really nice.
Speaker 2 (05:39):
Yeah, And I think too, it's one of those things
that's about context, doesn't it that In the end hedgehogs
which are native to the Netherlands and to the UK,
that's where you would fight for their protection and introduce species.
I don't know who ever loved possums, but we don't
love them here. Maybe where they came Where did possums
(06:00):
come from?
Speaker 4 (06:00):
Actually the possum came from, Yes, from Australia, from Australia
and Australian.
Speaker 3 (06:05):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. And the cool thing is
what I did with possums with kids in schools was
good because they the kids that it is actually only
made a last five to ten years in the air.
New Zealand Environment Trust. We would get the kids to
catch those possums, use the fur and use that as
a material you put inside the walls off your buildings.
(06:28):
That you are building like your your rooms. Yeah yeah,
are you aware of that? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
Yeah, no, And you can buy possum socks, eh, that
sort of thing.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
There, you go. Yeah, yeah. But the kids decided that
if we put it inside our houses on the West coast,
we got we are. We are no longer hassled with
very very cold, cold rooms. And it was just another one.
So all these things are getting together. I love that.
It's so nice.
Speaker 2 (06:54):
Yeah, now with all the research that you've done for it,
because I've had quick reading through it as well. So
what I'll do is I'll send it to my mate
who will put it up on my website. So resident
builder dot co dot nz will add it as a blog.
Might take a couple of days or so, but it
will be there as a blog for people to read
(07:15):
because there is some really fascinating stuff there and around
the whole you know, this is that whole ultrasonic thing,
right that if there's a way of making crossing the
road and tolerable for them, then that's a great way
of protecting them where they should live, as opposed to
here where they don't.
Speaker 3 (07:33):
Yeah. And the nice thing too is and I think
I think they'll be listening to this that The nice
thing too is that here two UK people and two
or three news what do you call it, Dutch people
are actually working together on these things in a totally
different way simply by having a look at what is
actually happening, you know what, who does what, and how
(07:54):
do we are we work this out properly. It's really cool.
Speaker 2 (07:57):
Because I think in the UK I might have seen
something like on Clarkson's farm or something like that, where
you know, there's a genuine concern in the countryside that
the population had dropped to a level that it might
not be sustainable anymore for hedgehogs.
Speaker 3 (08:11):
That's right, that's right. And you know we've done the
same with the here's another example that you like as
a gardener too. You should really know the fact that
we've got four different species of bumblebees in New Zealand,
right four and they all came from England and they
were all introduced into New Zealand because we needed some
(08:32):
preaches that could actually do the work for bumbles, you know,
and native bees to get all these flowers and all
the crops done for the for the future, you know,
milk and all that sort of stuff. So here you go.
We have these four species and they are Three of
them do reasonably well, the postailed or the restorers, the
(08:56):
ruderal bumblebee, and the bumblebee the who torum. But the
one that doesn't work very well is the one called
the short haired one, which is actually absolutely be rare
at the moment. And I work at that school in
Techapole with that particular species because that's one of the
few places where the girls do in the world. And
basically all these species are being looked after by people
(09:19):
that grow tomatoes and all that sort of stuff. No,
but the short he had had bumblebee is so rare
that we're actually doing something about it to make it
come back to life in large numbers. And I do
the school kids and we tell them all that once
we've got all these things going here in our school
ground and we build built returns for places where we
(09:41):
can grow the right plants for these particular bubblebies, then
we can get them back in numbers. And then when
we get them back in numbers, I say to the kids,
we send them back to the UK and that the
kids go like, now.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
You know absolutely, So what I'll do is the pace
that you've written for me that you sent to me.
I'll make sure it goes up on my website and
people on neverlocks a resident builder dot co dot nz.
Thanks Rude and look after yourself. We'll be back next Sunday.
Speaker 1 (10:13):
For more from the Resident Builder with Peter Wolfcamp. Listen
live to News Talk zet B on Sunday mornings from six,
or follow the podcast on iHeartRadio
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