Come on, hedgehogs, it’s time to be more panda

It’s hard out there for hedgehogs. Despite being Britain’s most loved wild animal, according to a BBC Wildlife Poll in 2013, their numbers have declined from 30 million in 1950 to possibly fewer than a million today.

In the countryside, hedgehogs have been a victim of the transformation of rough pasture into intensively cropped fields and the destruction of hedgerows; in towns, we’ve done for them with the suburban double whammy of decking and concrete drives.

And now there are reported incidents of hedgehogs suffering from balloon syndrome, where, as a result of injury or infection, gas collects under their skins and they inflate to twice their natural size. So if they escape being squished on the road, they may still suffer from being transformed into painful, prickly little beach balls of sadness. Tough gig.

So while we may say we love them – rather in the way we pretend to love apples but, when given the choice, tuck into cake – we’re not doing much to help them.

But let’s be honest, perhaps hedgehogs need to do more to help themselves. They could start by taking a look at dogs. Those joyous idiots have ensured not only that we pay lip service to loving them, but that we provide them with the best habitats, too (our sofas, our beds, soft tweed blankets), and essential nutrition, with delicious bones, prime cuts, even their own brands of “beer” (it’s called Bottom Sniffer; I’m not joking).

Research by Dr Bridgett vonholdt, an evolutionary biologist at Princeton University, found links between dogs’ cheerfulness and Williams syndrome in humans, which manifests as hyper-sociability. She suggests dogs evolved to become friendlier to ensure their survival. Who’s a clever boy, then?

Essentially, hedgehogs, in evolutionary terms, you need to make sure humans love you. Like, properly love you. Don’t let us get away with a lazy, caddish, “I love you, I’m just not in love with you”. Expect more.

If you want to be really canny, dear hedgehogs, try ripping a page from the panda playbook. Pandas are an evolutionary disaster. They eat only bamboo, have a form of camouflage that would have been effective for one night only (November 28 1966, Plaza Hotel, New York: Truman Capote’s Black and White Ball) and they hate sex. Yet we accommodate them with the patient generosity we might extend to an eye-poppingly wealthy, agèd spinster aunt.

Take the day in 2011 when pandas Tian Tian and Yang Guang (Sweetie and Sunshine, could they be more PR perfect?) arrived in Edinburgh. They descended into the airport in a plane emblazoned with their image, to be met by the then deputy first minister, Nicola Sturgeon. They were driven through streets lined with ecstatic crowds waving saltires. A pipe-and-drum band marked their arrival at the zoo. It was televised live. Characteristically reticent Scots were gripped by pandamania. There have been humbler royal weddings.

So, dear hedgehogs, be more panda. Exploit your puppyish helplessness. Perhaps beguile Simon Cowell with a special dance routine on Britain’s Got Talent, or bark your way through a Leonard Cohen number on The Voice. We like our wildlife cuddly – you need to look as at home in Hamleys as you do in the hedgerow. Play up the Mrs Tiggywinkle angle for the heritage tearoom market. Get yourselves on the tea towels and there will be no turning back.