NATURE COLUMN: Bill Cawley

I RESCUED a hedgehog when I was 10. It was going to be skewered with a pitchfork by some oaf from the Rutland village that my cousin lived.

It seemed to adapt well to living by the canal side in Stoke-on-trent when I bought it back.

It was fed on cat food, bread and milk and insects.

I got on well with Spike, as I called it.

I liked the bristles and its ability to roll in a ball. It was a safe enough environment and the cat did not bother it.

They are becoming a rarity now and some believe that the hedgehog is set to disappear from the countryside altogether.

I must admit that it is some time since I have seen one in the wild.

Various explanations have been given for the decline in numbers.

The changes in farming technique, the increase in the badger population and the destruction of hedgerows have all been offered as culprits.

It’s claimed that the numbers of hedgehogs have declined by 80 per cent since the 1950s. I can well believe it.

I came across a newspaper report from the 1950s of a walk near Martin Mere in Lancashire where a terrier would find and gently carry the urchin, depositing the creature in a ball at the feet of his owner.

During one autumn walk, the dog carried out this feat six times in an hour’s stroll.

What had become amusing to begin with, proved less so as the walk progressed.

Hedgehogs are creatures of the gloaming and when I lived in Upholland in Lancashire I could hear them shuffling and snorting as they wandered through the garden especially on mild autumn nights in search of food.

Their favourite hibernating place is in a wood deep among the leaves or in a leafy ditch beside a hedgerow, where they sleep the winter through.

But they do have their enemies. Badgers are said to be able to prise open the rolled up hedgehog and some say foxes can manage this act as well.

Stories are also told of foxes rolling hedgehogs into water to compel them to relax – although I think we should allow an element of doubt with this.

And of course there are cars, which have killed many Hedgehogs have proved valuable to man. In the 1930s a national newspaper featured a story of Cornish housewives who used hedgehogs to keep down insects in the family home and there are a few accounts elsewhere of them being kept in gardens to destroy enemies of flowers such as slugs and beetles.

Their disappearance, if that is the case, should be fully resisted by this ally of the gardener.

Something can be done about it; gardeners can do their bit by ensuring that this endangered species survives by making sure that hedgehogs have dry, undisturbed shelter available in their grounds