It appears there's no resident too small to escape the attention of the law in Hawera.

A truly dedicated policeman's had a prickly encounter in the early hours this morning - separating a hedgehog from a plastic cup stuck on its head.

Sergeant Andrew Russ was patrolling the streets when he found the staggering creature with in Glover Road.

Once he pulled it free he found what it had been after - there was a snail inside that had been after leftover milkshake, now being hunted in turn.

In April 2013, another Hawera officer found a hungry hedgehog stuck in the same type of cup and delicately separated the two, and in November 2014, Nelson Police responded to a similar incident.

Sergeant Ross says it's unusual for this to happen twice in the same town but it just goes to show that you never know what's around the corner in this line of work.