Germans complain they are being kept up at night by noisy hedgehogs having hours-long sex

[RandySF]

German police being called out to loud night-time disturbances are having to deal with some prickly intruders - mating hedgehogs.

Emergency services across the country have received dozens of noise complaints via 110 (the German 999) in the belief that either their neighbours are having unacceptably loud sex or an animal has been seriously injured.

But increasingly more often, they are finding hedgehogs mating, and creating irritatingly loud sounds.

The nation-wide problem has even developed its own hashtag, #igelsex, which translates as 'hedgehog sex'.

In one case, responders to a primary school in Augsburg, near Munich, where suspicious sounds could be coming from a playground and a security light had been activated led to police waking up the caretaker to scour the site.

But after completing the search, officers only found a pair of mating hedgehogs, which were not disturbed.

In a different incident in Kamenz near Dresden, the local fire brigade had to use a hydraulic spreader to open a charity clothes collection bin only to find hedgehogs making the loud reported noises.

'The suspicious noises were soon pinned on a hedgehog couple in the midst of a mating ritual,' read a report on the incident.



https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7325149/Germans-complain-kept-night-noisy-hedgehogs-having-hours-long-sex.html?ito=social-twitter_mailonline

[hunter]

1. Better that than the awful noises Trump makes.

There's a reason I avoid television and radio news.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

6. ditto

[mr_lebowski]

2. Jeez ... props for longevity ... amazing that dude is still at it after all these years ...

Hey, don't blame me, there was no getting away from this joke ...

[Haggis for Breakfast]

5. Groannnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

[mr_lebowski]

8. It's alright, given your diet, I'd probably be emoting similarly ... and laughing rarely ;) (nt)

[Haggis for Breakfast]

13. Actually, I was surprised that you found a picture of Ron Jeremy

that DIDN'T include his real claim to fame.

[BigmanPigman]

3. There were skunks mating at night under my old apt.

They are LOUD! One was finally caught in a trap alive. It let stinky smells loose when it was captured. Yuk! We thought that opossums were mating until it was caught.

[Yavin4]

4. Somebody is jealous.

Sorry you weren't invited to the party.

[RockRaven]

7. To be fair to these German complainers, given the headlines: their complaint is not hedgehog sex...

They are complaining about some noise of unknown (to them) identity...

It just so happens that the identity of said noise happens to be hedgehog sex.



Hmmm...

"happens to be hedgehog sex" is a phrase I never would have predicted that I would type. Ever.

[jberryhill]

10. I liked the original Muskrat Love better

Seriously at least watch the part about Henry Kissinger....

[dalton99a]

9. David Attenborough:

[muriel_volestrangler]

11. I think there was a couple of hedgehogs mating in my garden last week

The sound was quite like the Attenborough clip above, and it went on for some time, though when I went out I couldn't see anything. I wouldn't have mistook it for Germans, though

[DFW]

12. We have those things all around our house

They must be some mutant species of mute hedgehogs, because they have never made a peep. The bullfrogs in the pond next door, however, make a racket so loud, I think there have been complaints lodged from the other side of the border with Holland, and that is 100 km from where we live.

[Blue_true]

14. For some reason, my brain filters out sound that it determines is

Irritating, but regular and non threatening. I can live right beside a train track and after a couple of weeks, won't hear any train come past unless something unusual is happening with it.

I likely would be bothered by mating animals the first time I hear them, but then my brain catalogs the sounds and filter them out thereafter. The feature has been mostly a lifelong benefit because I can now sleep anywhere (after a particularly restless childhood where I stayed up late into the night thinking).