Our love for the badger could spell the end of the hedgehog

Around 1980, Not the Nine O’clock News ran a skit about truckers, who took pride in the number of hedgehogs they succeeded in squashing. Always in questionable taste, it was nevertheless funny, because dead hedgehogs were such a common sight on British roads. I never seem to see this form of roadkill now. But country roads are littered with the remains of dead badgers.

Hedgehog numbers are now so low, according to a new survey, that this adorable mammal is actually threatened with extinction. The badger population, by contrast, has boomed. I can’t be the only person who thinks there could be a connection. Badgers have strong claws that can rip open a curled hedgehog, to get their teeth into its belly; I’m told that the screams of the hedgehog, as it’s eaten alive, are horrific.

I don’t point this out to absolve humans of blame. When I was growing up, in the Fifties and Sixties, there were about 50 million hedgehogs in Britain – approximately the same number as people. They were common visitors to rural and suburban gardens. Since then, it’s not only badgers that have multiplied, but people. Gardens aren’t what they were. We’ve put down hard surfaces, and blocked the routes that used to allow hedgehogs to ramble over a wide territory to find food – they can wander for a mile or two each night.

The situation should be improving. In the bad years of intensification, changes in agriculture reduced habitat. Hedgerows were ripped out, copses felled, field sizes increased. But environmental grants have meant that hundreds of miles of new hedgerow have been planted in recent decades. And yet hedgehogs are no better off; in fact, their plight has only got worse.

It’s because of human choices that badgers have disproportionately thrived, of course. Once, badgers were doing almost as badly as hedgehogs are now. Farmers had no time for them, and they were persecuted by the barbaric practice of having them fight dogs. Legislation was needed to protect them.

But in Britain, the badger has no predator in the animal kingdom: as children know from Beatrix Potter’s Tale of Mr Tod, it can see off a fox. So badger numbers have exploded. Badger sightings are now commonplace, particularly in the West Country, where dozens can sometimes be seen in a field at once.

They’re wonderful creatures, especially when viewed through the anthropomorphising lens of The Wind in the Willows. It’s difficult (except for dairy farmers and people whose land has been undermined by their tunnels) not to love them. If only they ate nothing but worms; alas, they’re also partial to the eggs and chicks of groundnesting birds – a point acknowledged by the Songbird Survival Trust – and hedgehogs.

Away with sentiment. The countryside isn’t a wilderness, where different species keep each other in check. It’s a managed equilibrium, where humankind holds the ring. If one species is privileged, others suffer. Top predators can only survive by feeding on creatures lower in the food chain. Unfortunately, the badger has become politicised, and parts of the wildlife lobby regard each individual badger (rather than the species as a whole) as sacrosanct. How cruel and wrong-headed it would be if our well-intentioned efforts to save the badger led to the extinction of the equally captivating hedgehog.