It’s hot out there for a hedgehog

It is lovely to see the sun and warm weather finally arriving. Which made for the perfect weather for the 5km Fun Run round Moulton village. Well, that is unless you decide to run in hedgehog costume!

The fun run started at midday, which if I was sensible hedgehog, is when I would be resting in a nice shady hedgerow. But while running in the heat of the day it highlighted two important ways in which we can help hedgehogs.

First, keep your eyes open for hedgehogs crossing roads and slow down. Thanks to all the courteous drivers on Sunday who slowed down for the runners!

Second, hedgehogs love and need a refreshing drink, especially when the weather is hot. Plenty of water certainly helped me make it round the 5km route without over heating!

You may be wondering why someone would choose to run a race dressed as a hedgehog, well it was all to raise awareness for the Hedgehog Friendly Campus award that Moulton College are aiming for. These little spikey creatures have seen a steady decline in numbers over the last 40 years (Fig. 1). In 2020 the European hedgehog was listed as Vulnerable to Extinction in Great Britain (Wembridge et. al. 2022).

Fig 1: Relative density of hedgehogs reported in the GWCT National Gamebag Census between 1985 and 2019. Data from 619 sites were including in the mapping for the period 1985-89 , whilst 788 sites were included in the mapping for 2015-19 (Wembridge et. al. 2020).

Hedgehogs hibernate in winter and start waking up in the spring (Fig 2). Late spring and summer (May to Sept) are the months when hedgehogs are most active. But because they are nocturnal we seldom see them out and about and its easy disturb their day nests when mowing or strimming.

Fig 2: A year in the life of a hedgehog (Hedgehog Street 2024).

The main threats to hedgehogs include:

• Habitat loss e.g. in-filling gardens, ‘tidy gardening’
• Fragmenting of habitats
• Road traffic injuries and deaths
• Increased use of pesticides and other chemicals
• Climate change

Habitat loss goes hand in hand with fragmenting of habitats. As soon as there are impermeable boundaries around one garden it cuts it off from neighbouring gardens. Hedgehogs can forage between 1 and 2km a night so they really need some joined up gardens. Imagine if every garden was connected to neighbouring gardens with a little 13cm hole in the fence it would create the biggest “nature reserve” in the country! Not only are fences and walls barriers to hedgehogs, but roads also act as barriers as well as direct mortality of hedgehogs being run over.

Highly managed gardens and intensive agriculture can also leave these areas hostile and inhabitable for hedgehogs. Hedgehogs love feeding on snails, slugs, and other creepy crawlers, so consider dropping the use of chemical control and making your garden or land a haven for insect eating hedgehogs. You can also leave an area to go a little wild and watch the space become a little wild haven.

There are many ways you can support hedgehogs. Top tips for your own garden:

• Link your gardens with hedgehog highways
• Make your pond safe with a ramp
• Create a wild corner
• Put out meaty food and water
• Make a hedgehog house.

And if you want to get your school, local parish, land managers and farmers helping out hedgehogs visit The Hedgehog Streets Toolkits to get you started.

References

Hedgehog Street (2024). Hedgehog ecology and land management. Available at: https://www.britishhedgehogs.o... [date accessed: 15/04/2024]

Wembridge, D., Johnson, G., Al-Fulaij, N. & Langton, S. (2022). The State of Britain's Hedgehogs 2022. People's Trust for Endangered Species and British Hedgehog Preservation Society. Available at: https://www.hedgehogstreet.org... [date accessed: 15/04/2024]