Please create a hedgehog haven in your garden

The British Hedgehog Preservation Society is asking people to create a haven for the UK’s only spiny mammal this Hedgehog Awareness Week, May 2 to May 8.

Gardens are a stronghold for hedgehogs and we can make their lives so much easier with very little effort. Tips will be given out on our social media accounts during the week using #hedgehogweek with daily competitions to win ‘hedgehoggy’ prizes.

There are many things we can all do to help hedgehogs.

Here are just a few:

 Make sure hedgehogs can access your garden with a ‘hedgehog highway’. A five inch square gap in the bottom of fences or walls should do it. Once created, you can log these on the BIG Hedgehog Map at www.bighedgehogmap.org

 Create a log pile that will offer shelter and natural food

 Build a hedgehog home – see plans at www. britishhedgehogs.org.uk/hedgehog-homes

 Move piles of rubbish to a new site on the day you are burning it and check it carefully before setting light to it, lighting from only one side so that there’s an escape route should you have missed anything

 Check areas carefully before mowing or strimming

 Ensure netting is kept at a height that allows hedgehogs to pass safely under it

 Check compost heaps carefully before digging the fork in

 Stop using pesticides and poisons

 Cover drains or deep holes

 Ensure there is an easy route out of ponds and pools.

Our gardens take up such a lot of habitat and by each making our own plot more hedgehog-friendly, we can improve a huge amount of habitat for them.

If you don’t have a garden yourself, you can still help by contacting public space managers, neighbours, family and friends to ensure they are all doing their bit.

We urge everyone to become a ‘hedgehog champion’ for their area at Hedgehog Street – a project run by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and our partners People’s Trust for Endangered Species.

Join more than 93,000 ‘champions’ by signing up free at www.hedgehogstreet.org. You will get an email with top tips on how you can help hedgehogs each month and there’s even a Hedgehog Street app you can download from the App Store or Google Play.

Fay Vass, chief executive, British Hedgehog Preservation Society.