We’ve been told many times that hedgehog numbers in the UK have sadly plummeted over the past decade. Now is time for a bit of good news thanks to an annual survey of garden wildlife from the readers of BBC Gardeners’ World magazine. They report that there’s been a 2% increase in hedgehog sightings in 2023. Previously the magazine reported a decline in numbers.
Causes of decline in numbers
Major reasons for this population decline are twofold:
- Loss of food and habitat in the countryside
- fragmentation of green spaces in urban areas.
These causes have contributed to hedgehog numbers decreasing by around 30% since 2000. There is genuine concern that they might become extinct in the wild in Britain over the next 20 years.
The biggest conservation problem is in the countryside were in some places there has been a 75% drop in population numbers.
However, there is some optimism in villages, suburbs and towns where after a decade of conservation efforts the population has stabilised and, as mentioned, growing slightly.
Survey
Participants to the survey were asked whether they had seen a hedgehog in their garden over the past year. The results are as follows:
- 33% of respondents reported seeing a hedgehog in the garden up from 31% in 2022.
- of the people who saw hedgehogs in the garden, 21% either saw them for the first time last year or saw them more often than in 2022.
- 77% said that they had been taking steps to protect and improve the environment for hedgehogs in their garden and wildlife in general in 2023.
- these steps included avoiding putting down pellet slugs, checking the hedgehogs, and checking for other wildlife and maintaining a more natural and less tidy garden.
- 18% had seen hedgehogs in the past year up 2.7% from 2022 in urban areas.
- In rural areas 43% of the participants to the survey had observed hedgehogs in the past year which is up 1% from 2022.
The chief executive of the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, Fay Vas said that information from the State of Britain’s Hedgehogs 2022 report indicated that urban populations were more or less stable and may be recovering.
Jewson
There are some encouraging attempts to protect the hedgehog. For example, a large builders’ merchants, Jewson, have agreed to stock fences with hedgehog friendly holes to allow hedgehogs to travel between gardens which extends their habitat. It creates a corridor in suburbia and urban environments. This allows them greater access to food, shelter and for mating.
Vulnerable
Hedgehogs are listed as vulnerable by the Red List which is an organisation which assesses the vulnerability of a species to extinction. The clasification “Vulnerable” is in the middle of the classification spectrum.
Hedgehog Street
An initiative called Hedgehog Street which commenced in 2011 encouraged residents to cut holes in garden fences to create hedgehog highways. And to build hedgehog boxes and feeding stations plus ensuring that their gardens are more wildlife friendly i.e. more natural. This campaign has encouraged more than 116,000 people to promise to make their gardens more hedgehog friendly. The public are participating but they want the building industry to also become involved.
RELATED: Biggest network of hedgehog highways called ‘Hedgehog Street’ in Dale Road, Keyworth
