Germans complain they are being kept up at night by noisy hedgehogs having hours-long sex
- Germany emergency services being called out to loud night-time disturbances
- Increasingly these are turning out to be hedgehogs mating in gardens
- Their mating season usually runs between April and the beginning of September
German police being called out to loud night-time disturbances are having to deal with some prickly intruders – mating hedgehogs.
Emergency services across the country have received dozens of noise complaints via 110 (the German 999) in the belief that either their neighbours are having unacceptably loud sex or an animal has been seriously injured.
But increasingly more often, they are finding hedgehogs mating, and creating irritatingly loud sounds.
The nation-wide problem has even developed its own hashtag, #igelsex, which translates as ‘hedgehog sex’.
German police being called out to loud night-time disturbances are having to deal with some prickly intruders – mating hedgehogs
In one case, responders to a primary school in Augsburg, near Munich, where suspicious sounds could be coming from a playground and a security light had been activated led to police waking up the caretaker to scour the site.
But after completing the search, officers only found a pair of mating hedgehogs, which were not disturbed.
In a different incident in Kamenz near Dresden, the local fire brigade had to use a hydraulic spreader to open a charity clothes collection bin only to find hedgehogs making the loud reported noises.
‘The suspicious noises were soon pinned on a hedgehog couple in the midst of a mating ritual,’ read a report on the incident.
In one incident in Kamenz near Dresden, the local fire brigade had to use a hydraulic spreader to open a charity clothes collection bin only to find hedgehogs making the loud reported noises (stock photo)
Police are frequently being called out in the summer months to similar complaints, according to the news magazine Der Spiegel.
Hedgehog copulation can last for hours over a 430 square-foot area, and the small creatures are capable of creating a whole range of loud noises including hissing, snarling and even screaming.
Experts at the veterinary faculty of the Ludwig Maximilian University, Munich said that ‘hedgehogs snarl loudly during the hours-long mating ritual’ with the males making the most noise, according to the Guardian.
The summer is usually the most active mating period for the creatures, which usually runs between April and the beginning of September.
Hedgehog experts have urged emergency services to avoid disturbing the hedgehogs if they are found mating to avoid breaking up the coupling.