PYGMY SHREW
For the visitors staying in any of the 23 properties on Lundy, you will not be alone. They are shy and secretive, but if you are extremely lucky, you will see one of our pygmy shrews. They live outside as well, but your best chance of seeing one is in one of the Landmark properties. Of course, all the staff have their own shrews in their properties.
Firstly, to the visitors who scream, shout and complain about the mice in their accommodation, there are no rodents on Lundy, shrews are not even related to mice. Shrews are insectivores, and are more closely related to a mole than a mouse. They are also protected by the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1976, which means it is illegal to harm or kill them.
Identification is very easy as there is nothing else on the island to confuse it with. It is between 40mm and 60mm in length, with a dark brown body and head. It has silver or grey undersides, a long nose with long whiskers and tiny eyes.
During the winter the shrews actually shrink. They shrink their heads and brains, their spinal cords shorten and their major organs shrink to help them survive when food is scarce.
Some shrews are venomous, but the pygmy shrew is not. You will often hear them in the summer as the males squeak loudly when fighting. Shrews have to feed every 2 to 3 hours to survive, their metabolism dictates that if they do not eat that regularly, they will starve. With these constraints, they only live for 1 to 1 and a half years.
Although they are not mice, they have filled that niche and will eat crumbs and dropped food as well as spiders and woodlice – their usual diet.
Pygmy shrews do not eat earthworms, that would be your common shrew, which we do not have on the island.
In Pigs 5, our accommodation on Lundy, our shrews reminded Simone of an etch a sketch due to the fast straight lines they made on forays into our lounge.
