Taranaki police have again spent the early hours of the morning coming to the aid of staggering residents who gave them a prickly welcome.
Hawera Sergeant Andrew Russ said he was patrolling the streets at 4am this morning when he happened upon a hedgehog staggering with a plastic cup stuck on its head.
"Once I pulled the hedgehog free it then became apparent that it may not have been after the contents of the cup, as there was a snail inside who may have consumed some of the shake and was now being hunted for its shake flavoured aroma," he said.
It wasn't the first time police had come to the aid of one of their resident hedgehogs.
In April 2013, another Hawera officer found a hungry hedgehog stuck in the same type of cup and separated the two, and in November 2014, police in Nelson responded to a similar incident.
