Picking, cutting and carving pumpkins has increased in popularity but the could be killing the wildlife
It's that time of the year when people are taking their children to pumpkin patches and spending the evening carving them into ghoulish creatures.
A lot of people think it's a great idea to put them outside and let the wildlife nibble at the leftovers. However this could be causing some serious problems for wild animals such as hedgehogs. The Woodlands Trust are now pleading with people not to dump their used pumpkins outside especially in woodlands.The trust has explained how thousands of tonnes of pumpkins are thrown away each Halloween - and if certain animals manage to get their paws on them, it can cause serious problems.
The British Hedgehog Preservation Society suggest hanging your pumpkins in trees to allow birds and squirrels to eat the fruit and keep them off the ground so as not to encourage hogs to eat them. If you don't want to do that, the best way to dispose of a pumpkin is in your food waste or compost bin. Alternatively you could bury it well in the soil for the worms to feast on.
"Pumpkins can make wildlife such as hedgehogs ill if they eat them. Removing dumped, rotting pumpkin waste costs us precious time and money which we could instead be spending on vital conservation work.