Woodland Trust issues plea to stop dumping pumpkins

With Halloween over for another year, the Woodland Trust has issued a plea not to endanger wildlife by dumping pumpkins in woodland.

The UK’s largest woodland conservation charity is raising awareness of a trend in recent years for Halloween pumpkins to be taken to the nearest wood and discarded - in a well-meaning but misguided attempt - to provide food for birds and woodland creatures.

Paul Bunton, engagement and communication officer at the Woodland Trust, said: “A myth seems to have built up that leaving pumpkins in woods helps wildlife. People think they’re doing a good thing by not binning them in landfill and instead leaving them for nature.

"But pumpkin flesh can be dangerous for hedgehogs, attracts colonies of rats and also has a really detrimental effect on woodland soils, plants and fungi. We can’t leave dumped pumpkins to rot so we end up with an orange mushy mess to deal with at many of our sites.”

The Woodland Trust has tips on its website on how pumpkin leftovers can be best used, including making a pumpkin bird-feeder for the garden, which should be kept high off the ground well away from hedgehogs.

Hedgehogs and other woodland wildlife are opportunistic eaters, and they spend autumn and early winter building up their fat reserves for hibernation.

As a result, hedgehogs can gorge themselves on easily available food like dumped pumpkins. Although not toxic to them the fleshy fibrous fruit can cause stomach upsets and diarrhoea as they are not designed to eat large quantities of fruit.

This can lead to them becoming bloated and dangerously dehydrated which in turn can be fatal. At this time of year, they cannot afford to become ill, or they may not survive the winter hibernation.

According to the Woodland Trust, which owns and cares for more than 1,000 free-to-visit areas of woodland across the UK, the pumpkin problem seems to be starting earlier and earlier, with supermarkets flooded with cheap pumpkins for sale and pumpkin-picking growing in popularity as a family activity in the run-up to Halloween.

Mr Bunton added: "Thousands of tonnes of pumpkin get thrown away in the UK after Halloween each year, so it would be great if we could all put that to better use.

"Jack-o-lanterns can be good for wildlife in small quantities in gardens, but not woodland or other countryside. We are urging people everywhere to make soup or to make a bird-feeder for your garden, but please don’t make a mess of the countryside.”

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