2025年1月、ベルギーのルーヴェン市が、夜間のロボット草刈り機の使用を控えるよう市民に正式に呼びかけた。ハリネズミが切られるからである。January 2025 — The Belgian city of Leuven has formally asked residents not to run their robotic lawnmowers at night, because they cut up hedgehogs.

Leuven, a university city east of Brussels in Belgium, has formally asked residents not to run their robotic lawnmowers at night. Many such mowers, it said, have no motion or collision sensors and pose a serious danger to hedgehogs foraging for food in the dark.

The appeal was prompted by research from Ghent University and Natuurpunt, a Flemish nature organisation. It found that the number of hedgehogs had halved between 2008 and 2018. The decline is attributed to the disappearance of suitable habitats and food, and to the fact that the small habitats that remain are growing more dangerous. Hedgehogs have also been the most frequently reported roadkill in the region for the past ten years.

Thomas Van Oppens, the Leuven alderman for animal welfare, said: this is why the city asks people to use robotic lawnmowers only during the day, as that makes a big difference. Natuurpunt advises checking the lawn for animals before mowing in daytime, removing any with a kitchen mitten if found, and choosing machines with a front edge of no more than four and a half centimetres and a collision sensor.