Create a hoggy haven
We gardeners can all do our bit to help hedgehog numbers recover. Adrian Thomas explains how
We gardeners can all do our bit to help hedgehog numbers recover. Here’s a few pointers
Have you ever ventured out into your garden after dark and heard something snuffling and snorting, deep in the undergrowth? At first, it might be a little unnerving, but the source of these chunterings almost always turns out to be a hedgehog. The curious sounds don’t mean something is wrong with it – that’s just what they do when nosing around for food.
You might even have encountered amorous hedgehogs in spring or summer, which can get really noisy! There’s little in the way of decorum about the male’s advances; he just gets very excited, chasing the female around, while she often seems to want to just fend him off, making a sound like the chuffing of a steam engine.
Your presence may prompt them to curl into tight balls, all prickles facing outwards; they have a dome of specialised muscles over their backs that allow them to do so. But there isn’t any fur between those 6,000 spines, so hedgehogs are rather prone to feeling the cold and the heat. However, they have soft fur around their face and in a ‘skirt’ around their body, such that you can barely see their little legs much of the time. ➤
All these things make hedgehogs immensely entertaining to observe, even by moonlight. They might be somewhat primitive creatures, but they’re oh-so endearing!
Sadly, many of us have not had any of these experiences, for in 2020 the hedgehog was officially classified as ‘vulnerable to extinction’ and added to the Red List of British mammals. Despite being one of the nation’s favourite animals, it has been in decline for many decades now, and even since the turn of the century it’s estimated to have decreased by maybe 30% in urban areas and 50% in rural ones.
The reasons for this are varied and may include the intensification of agriculture, the increase in badgers (their main predator) in many areas and the impact of 100,000+ being killed on roads each year. The good news – and there is good news – is that hedgehogs are still widespread enough that many of us have the chance to do something to help them in our gardens. Indeed, there are signs that in urban and suburban gardens they might at last be starting a comeback. One of the studies picking up this trend is the British Trust for Ornithology’s Garden Birdwatch, in which the proportion of gardens in which hedgehogs are reported is gradually increasing.
While it’s difficult to prove how much of this lift is due to the efforts of gardeners, there are so many people now doing things to help that it can only be a good thing. Even in small gardens, there’s plenty that can be done to offer them a vital refuge. With interest and concern for them on the rise, gardeners are at the forefront of saving this special little creature. ✿
He chases her around, she makes a sound like a chuffing steam train