Do hedgehogs carry bovine tuberculosis and/or other diseases that pose a danger to humans or livestock?
Hedgehogs are certainly capable of carrying various diseases that are known to pose a health risk to humans and livestock. However, it is important to keep such cases in perspective and make the distinction between a potential and an actual carrier for a given parasite, bacterium, protozoa or virus; the observation that hedgehogs can carry a specific disease does not necessarily mean such an infection is common or even to be expected under wild conditions. Nonetheless, hedgehogs have been implicated as potential hosts for several malentities that are important in both public health and economical terms perhaps the big three of these are bovine tuberculosis (bTB), foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) (both of which have made the headlines in the UK during the past few months) and rabies. Hedgehogs are known to be susceptible to infection by various species of the TB-causing bacteria Mycobacterium; records exist of isolates of M. avium and M. marinum (a marine species!) from European hedgehogs a
