It used to be that fast food only presented potential health risks to human beings. Of course, if a person were to only eat fast food, never exercise and supplement their fatty intake with sugar-enriched soft drinks, then they would only have themselves to blame. These days, the risks are even lower to humans after many companies rediscovered the consciences and began offering healthier options, therefore making themselves even less culpable.

Despite the efforts made to keep fast-food loving humans alive and avoid lawsuits, there continues to be a demographic that suffers at the hands of globalized takeaway chains. These customers have a more immediate threat to their health. Not only are they facing a future filled with weakened joints, voluminous sweat pants and potential heart disease, the ice-cream loving hedgehogs of Nuremberg are facing strangulation and death.

Hedgehogs get added dollop of death

It seems that it's not only humans who can't get enough of McDonald's McFlurry ice creams. Those soft ices mixed with all manner of delicious toppings are truly one of the fast food chains more brilliant ideas and a cornerstone of 21st century civilization. However, this has not gone unnoticed by Nuremberg's more prickly residents who have discovered for themselves those chilly scoops of heaven.

It seems that the local hedgehogs are crazy in love with McFlurry's and in their deranged pursuit of discarded ice cream treats are putting their lives at risk. While it is unknown what a diet of ice cream can do to a hedgehog -- apart from making rolling into a ball a more laborious exercise -- it is not the product itself which is proving deadly but the receptacle.

After finding a number of hedgehogs dead with their heads stuck in McFlurry containers, local authorities and McDonald's bigwigs have been put on alert. It seems that when attracted to the discarded tubs, the hedgehog deliriously follows his or her nose into it in search of a sweet reward. After licking up the remains, the hedgehog then tries to reverse out of the tub only to find that its quills get stuck in the plastic ring around the entrance. Trapped with no escape, the hedgehog slowly starves to death.

Making packaging more spine friendly

After coming to this conclusion and receiving disturbing data from other countries where the deadly phenomena has occurred, McDonald's has vowed to protect even its non-human customers by making its packaging more hedgehog-friendly.

The McDonald's boffins at the company's German head office in Munich have come up with a potential life-saving feature which they hope to introduce to McFlurry containers by the beginning of 2008. The stiff plastic rim is to be replaced by a softer substance and the tub will be of a folded cardboard construction which will allow the tub to come apart at the bottom.

The deadly design has been in circulation for six years and while there will still be many of these potential death-traps on the market, no more will be made, according to a McDonald's statement.

However, until the offending tubs are removed from service, the threat remains. Once they have been replaced, the only worries the ice-cream loving hedgehogs will then have will be whether or not they can get their overweight bodies across the road in time to avoid oncoming traffic.