Thursday, September 07, 2006

How stupid is a hedgehog?

There's was apparently a rampant increase in the hedgehog mortality rate due to the McDonald's McFlurrys, those tasty ice-cream and candy concoctions that are served in a large cup. It seems hedgehogs in England have been sticking their heads into littered cups with leftover ice-cream. They get their heads stuck and can't extracate themselves, ending up ironically straving to death. After pressure from British Hedgehog Preservation Society (sounds like a group from a Monty Python skit), McDonald's has redesigned the McFlurry container so that hedgehogs will no longer be endangered by their own unceasing hunger for frozen dairy products.

Good for the hedgehogs, but if they were being outsmarted by McFlurry cups, maybe that was just natural selection culling the herd...

Hedgehogs have finally humbled burger giant McDonald's after years of campaigning, forcing the company to redesign its killer McFlurry ice-cream containers.

Up to now the opening in the container has been large enough for hedgehogs to get their heads into for a lick of the left-over dessert -- a trap they have then been unable to withdraw from, so dying of starvation in untold numbers.

But from September 1, the wide-mouthed opening in the lid of the McFlurry containers will be reduced in size, making them too small for the sugar-loving animals to get their heads into.

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