HEDGEHOGS
Hedgehogs are in decline but a project is gathering pace to encourage us to make holes in our fences to help preserve these prickly mammals
Iremember it as though it were yesterday. A balmy summer’s evening at almost bedtime. Dad’s face appearing at the kitchen window, finger to lips, beckoning. Us tiptoeing outside to squint down his torch beam at a shuffling hump in the flowerbed. Aged five: my first living hedgehog! I hardly dared breathe.
That was the early Seventies. Back then, hedgehogs were common in my suburban Surrey neighbourhood. Alas, it’s been many years since I last saw one alive. And I’m not alone. These charming creatures have suffered a steep decline throughout my lifetime. The State of Britain’s Hedgehogs – a2022 joint report from the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) – found that populations across rural Britain have fallen on average by anywhere between 30% to 75% since the millennium. Today, the species is classified as Vulnerable in Great Britain.
How do we explain this? Contrary to popular opinion, we can’t simply blame roads. Yes, traffic takes a toll– as do badgers, the hedgehog’s only significant predator, in some areas. But the real culprit, it seems, is the declining health of our countryside, a familiar woe that also explains the loss of songbirds, butterflies and much more. The relentless intensification of farming has impoverished soils, removed field margins and hedgerows, and doused the environment in pesticides. ‘Pests’ are exactly what hedgehogs eat, and hedges – well, the clue’s in the name. The UK, sadly, is one of the most naturedepleted countries on Earth and hedgehogs are simply following the trend.
But this is not entirely a tale of doom and gloom. The report spells out the decline in rural hedgehogs. In towns, things are more promising. The latest hedgehog census estimated that our urban hedgehog population stands at 177,000–266,000, from an estimated overall UK population of 879,000. In other words, around a quarter of our hedgehogs are thought to live in towns, and studies suggest that this population is holding up.
‘Hedgehogs love gardens,’ says Grace Johnson of Hedgehog Street (hedgehogstreet.org), a project founded in 2011 by the PTES and BHPS to give urban hedgehogs a helping hand. ‘We need to think of gardens as part of the wider landscape.’
She explains how urban green spaces offer hedgehogs refuge from pressures elsewhere and can support high numbers. With some 10,657 sq km of gardens and urban green spaces in England, Scotland and Wales today, that’s a lot of potential hedgehog habitat.
But gardens come with fences – and this is a problem. Hedgehogs need room to roam. Radio tracking has show
