Help Our Hedgehogs
2021 marks the tenth anniversar y of Hedgehog Street, a joint campaign between People’s Trust for
Endangered Species and the British Hedgehog Preser vation Society.
“This was set up in response to the rapid decline of hedgehogs in the UK,” says Hedgehog Street’s Grace Johnson, Hedgehog Officer. “Since the year 2000, we’ve lost half of our hedgehogs from rural areas and a third from urban areas. Much of this is due to the loss of their natural habitat to urbanisation and the fragmentation of it – hedgehogs can’t climb over things like walls and fences and it limits their ability to travel to find nesting sites, to forage for food and also to find mates.
“But there are several easy and cheap things that people can do in their own gardens to help hedgehogs to thrive. Neighbouring gardens can create a ‘hedgehog highway’. This is a 13cm gap (about the size of a CD case) at ground level in the fence, allowing hedgehogs to move from one garden to another. Alternatively, burrow a channel of the same size underneath it.
“Your actions don’t need to be complicated or expensive. Just leave a corner of the garden a bit wild – letting the grass grow a bit there will be really good for hedgehogs, providing nesting materials and increasing the number of insects there, which is what hedgehogs eat. You can make a feeding station out of a plastic storage container that can be bought in shops for only a couple of pounds. Simple habits like checking grassy borders before strimming will spare awful injuries to hedgehogs as well as other animals such as frogs.
“For our 10th bir thday we are asking ever yone to do 10 things for hedgehogs this year. There are plenty of ideas on our website, plus our new garden assessment tool – just answer a few questions about your garden to see how hedgehog-friendly it is, and the tool will then generate some tailored advice, offering suggestions about wildlife-friendly features such as compost heaps and log piles, which are really beneficial for hedgehogs.
“For Hedgehog Street’s 10th bir thday, please join in and do ten things to help hedgehogs this year. Help us to conser ve these amazing animals.”