One million unite to save hedgehogs

ALMOST one million people have signed a petition calling for extra protection for hedgehogs ahead of a landmark parliamentary debate tomorrow.

Just under 995,000 people supported the petition, which hopes to increase pressure on MPS by showing how strongly the public feels about the issue.

Hedgehogs are in decline and since 2000 Britain has lost half from rural areas and a third from urban zones.

They were recently added to the International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List for Britain and designated “vulnerable”, that is, having “an appreciable risk of extinction in the next 10 years”.

Hedgehogs are currently protected from some methods of killing and collection under Schedule 6 of the Wildlife and Countryside Act 1981.

The petition is asking for that protection to be increased to Schedule 5, which would make it illegal to intentionally kill, injure, take or sell the creatures.

The places they use for shelter would also be protected.

This would mean that, in the case of housebuilding, for example, a developer would be obliged to ensure the creatures are either absent from a site or, if they are present, taken into consideration before any work is carried out.

Hedgehogs are the only threatened mammal species on the red list for Britain that are not afforded the protection offered by Schedule 5. Fay Vass, chief executive of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, said: “They have been around since the time of dinosaurs and survived saber-toothed tigers and woolly mammoths.

“They’re a really good indicator species as they don’t need all that much. If they’re struggling it proves the environment is in such a poor condition that we have to worry for all other species, including us.

“We are seeing worrying and unsustainable decline and we need to look at what we can do to reverse it.

“All the warning signs are there. They need protection.”

The support that the petition has generated underlines the place hedgehogs hold in many people’s hearts and minds, and they have been voted Britain’s most popular wild mammal in several surveys.

MP Chris Grayling, who was labelled “species champion” for the hedgehog by campaigners, said: “I am going to be speaking in the debate tomorrow and once again calling for a rounded

approach to wildlife surveys on new development sites.

“I want wildlife surveys to cover a much broader range of species, so developers must take any necessary steps to protect hedgehogs.

“I’m fairly confident the Government will act on this. They promised during the last debate to set up a review about how protections for hedgehogs work. The decrease in numbers is catastrophic. The current legal protections aren’t good enough.

“My hope is the Government will do what it has agreed to do and tighten their legal protections.

“Hedgehogs are the national animal, if you ask people ‘what is the greatest national animal?’, apart from a lion, they will say hedgehog.”

Matt Vickers, Tory MP for Stockton South, who is leading tomorrow’s debate, said: “I don’t think enough people are aware of the fall in numbers of the great British hedgehog.

“In a few years we could be talking about them like they’re the dodo, which is horrible. It is a crazy thought but not impossible.

“When they’re gone, they’re gone.”