Spike in city hedgehogs as rural dwellers fall

Report finds ‘encouraging’ picture for urban creatures but country cousins may be in danger of extinction

AT THE end of Aesop’s famous story, the country mouse flees the city for the safety of his rural idyll – but for the country hedgehog, the story would have a very different conclusion.

Hedgehog populations have plummeted across the countryside since the turn of the century, but urban animals are faring better than their rural cousins, new data show.

The latest State of Britain’s Hedgehogs report warns that between 30 per cent and 75 per cent of the population of hedgehogs has been lost in rural areas in the last two decades, with declines varying between regions and the largest falls in the eastern half of England.

But there is a more hopeful picture for the beloved animals in towns and cities, where a stable population might be recovering thanks to help from considerate gardeners and animal-lovers, the report from conservation charities suggests.

Analysis by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) draws on a number of surveys carried out in rural and urban areas, and is the first to be released in four years.

Records include citizen science recording schemes, animal road casualty records, and reports of accidental kills by gamekeepers.

Data from 1981 to 2020 show that hedgehogs have undergone long historic declines, but now the differing fortunes of rural and urban populations are becoming increasingly obvious.

While the first State of Britain’s Hedgehogs report in 2011 estimated that a quarter of the population in urban areas had been lost in the first decade of the century, the latest data show no evidence that the decline has continued.

Rather, in cities and towns the data suggest “a stable population that might be recovering” and paints an “encouraging” picture for the city-dwelling animals.

Data from the British Trust for Ornithology’s Garden Birdwatch, where mammals can also be recorded as an option, suggests a falling trend until 2013 but then rising numbers, while data from the PTES Living with Mammals suggest that a decline has levelled off.

Fay Vass, BHPS chief executive, said: “Greater awareness, and individual and community actions, such as making gardens more hedgehog friendly, may be starting to help urban hedgehogs.

“However, urgent action is needed to understand why rural areas are no longer suitable for hedgehogs, and how conservationists, farmers and land managers can work together to prevent hedgehogs from becoming extinct in the countryside.”

Nida Al-fulaij, conservation research manager at PTES and one of the report’s authors, said that the charity was alarmed at what was happening in the countryside, and wanted to work with farmers to make landscapes more hedgehog-friendly.

“If you picture a landscape, the greater mosaic of different habitats and varied features, and varied species within those features, the better it is not just for hedgehogs but for everything,” she said.

Getting hedgerows, the habitat that gives hedgehogs their name, into good condition would help, providing more and thicker hedges for food and cover, with different species such as broadleaf trees for leaves they can nest in, Ms Alfulaij added.

Hedgehogs will also benefit from field margins that are not sprayed so there is a supply of food such as slugs, caterpillars and bugs.

“The crucial thing will be to make this habitat to increase the food availability and nesting and forage availability across the landscape,” Ms Al-fulaij said.