Save our hedgehogs! A plea for help to gardeners as numbers across Britain plunge

By FIONA MACRAE

In the 1950s, gardens and hedgerows were home to around 30million hedgehogs (pictured: Erinaceus europaeus). Today, the figure could be less than a million


They are cherished by wildlife lovers across the country.

But hedgehogs have become increasingly rare in recent times.

So gardeners are now being urged to create ‘hedgehog highways’ in an attempt to stop one of Britain’s best-loved creatures from disappearing for ever.

Manicured gardens, road deaths, attacks by badgers and modern farming practices are blamed for hedgehog numbers plummeting.

In the 1950s, gardens and hedgerows were home to around 30million hedgehogs.
Today, the figure could be less than a million.

And conservation charities warn that unless urgent action is taken, the mammals could vanish from some parts of the UK by 2050.



They suggest homeowners interlink their gardens by removing a single brick from the bottom of a wall or cutting a hole in a fence – so creating a type of ‘hedgehog highway’, or thoroughfare.

This small action, they say, will aid the remaining hedgehogs on their nocturnal forages, which can see them covering up to a mile a night on the hunt for worms and other tasty titbits.

The Hedgehog Street campaign, launched today by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, is also appealing for enthusiastic gardeners to become ‘hedgehog champions’ and recruit their neighbours to the cause.

‘Twenty-three million households have access to a garden in the UK covering around 433,000 hectares (1 million acres).

‘Reaching a modest 0.1 per cent of these could lead to the creation of a hedgehog refuge larger than the Sherwood Forest National Nature Reserve.’


source: dailymail