Garden wildlife are being drawn into turf wars by well-meaning animal lovers who leave out food, a study has found.
Experts at Nottingham Trent University and the University of Brighton analysed hundreds of videos recorded by the public to investigate interactions within and between different species.
They found that badgers, hedgehogs, foxes and cats are fighting and having stand-offs over scraps left in British gardens.
While leaving out leftovers or commercially bought feed can provide benefits for wild animals, it can also draw competitors and predators close together.
The videos showed that animals displayed a number of aggressive behaviours, including lunging, biting and striking out, while in one case a hedgehog was pushed into water.
According to the study, badgers tended to dominate other species in the garden hierarchy, while hedgehogs had more clashes than expected.
There were more displays of aggressive and submissive behaviour among animals than neutral interactions, the footage revealed.
From 316 instances where animals were spotted together, 175 ended in confrontation.
Researchers also found that creatures were more likely to confront different species than their own.
Cats and foxes appeared to take a particular dislike to one another, with more than three-quarters of interactions (77 per cent) sparking some form of aggressive or defensive reaction – with cats dominating foxes.
Badgers were stronger than all other species in the contest for food and, to the research team’s surprise, hedgehogs outcompeted cats.
They suggest this could be because domestic cats are not as physically or behaviourally well adapted to defend themselves against hedgehog spines as wild predators.
Within the same species, hedgehogs were found to be the most combative, with more than half (55 per cent) of interactions between them leading to some form of aggression.
This included a move dubbed “barge and roll” by the researchers, whereby one hedgehog attacks another by running at it, causing the victim to roll up before being pushed away by the assailant.
Researchers suggest the purpose appeared to be to move a rival away from the food, such as to the edge of the garden.
In one instance, an animal was pushed down a flight of concrete, and another into water.
Within species, badgers were the least competitive with one another, with just 7 per cent of encounters resulting in a stand-off.
The findings come after Britons were urged to leave a bowl of water and a tray of dog or cat food in their garden to help hedgehogs, who are coming out of hibernation early this year.
The woodland animal’s winter hibernation normally ends in mid-March, but they are waking earlier than expected owing to relatively mild weather.
Aggression between species
Prof Dawn Scott, lead researcher from Nottingham Trent University’s School of Animal, Rural and Environmental Sciences, said: “Food provided by people may help wild animals but may also attract animals together that could compete, injure, or predate each other.”
She added: “The consequences of interactions between garden mammals are numerous and can become aggressive between competing species.
“It could lead to injury or death and increased competition might also reduce access to resources for subordinate species or individuals.
“Our study is the first to quantify interactions between urban mammal communities in this way and to identify hierarchical relationships between wild and domestic mammals in urban gardens.
“We need to better understand interactions between urban animals and the potential effects of providing food in this way, to ensure any potential risks are minimised.”
The study was published in the journal Animals and also involved researchers from the University of Sussex and the Spanish National Research Council.
