The Jeżurkowo Animal Rehabilitation Centre, which rescues spiny mammals, is sounding the alarm on Facebook. It describes two cases of 'abductions' that happened on the same day. Both involved hedgehog mums. The first pregnant female was taken out of the city into the forest. As a result of the stress, she gave birth to premature babies in the car, most likely she's going to reject them.

The second hedgehog mum was found by someone in the person's garden, taken with her babies to a house and placed in a bowl. The hedgehog mother then decided that she would not be able to rear her offspring in these conditions, so she began to bite them "to hasten the inevitable". The Centre adds that if the nest was a trouble in the garden, all the owners had to do was to wait for nightfall. Once the nest was discovered by people, the hedgehog mother would move it to a safe place herself.

Hedgehogs are protected in Poland, keeping them indoors is illegal. As Jeżurkowo emphasises, animals living in cities by no means dream of moving to the forest. The best thing we can do when encountering a healthy hedgehog anywhere is to... leave it alone.

A similar story was told on Twitter by biologist Robert Maślak. He describes the case of a roe deer that ended up at the Jelonki Periodic Animal Rehabilitation Centre because someone found it in the grass and decided to take it home. After a day of being fed by shop milk and longing for its mother, the baby deer might not survive.

Maślak stresses that young roe deer are hidden by their mother in grass or bushes on purpose. He also adds that hares do the same. Mothers only visit them at night to feed. So what should you do if you find a young roe deer or hare? The instructions are short and blunt: "Don't touch, don't take, don't steal!".