Hedgehog Awareness Week runs from the 5th to 11th May 2024
It's Hedgehog Awareness Week from the 5th to the 11th of May. The week aims to highlights the problems that our beautiful hedgehogs face and how we can all help them.
Hedgehogs are a very good indicator species. That means that if they are not coping well their habitat is not sufficient for them to survive and thrive. As an indicator species which is not coping, first situation indicates that other species are not coping either.
The British Hedgehog Preservation Society are asking us all to “Welcome Wildlife” into our gardens and green spaces, and that's includes landowners, schools and councils who can do a lot to help wildlife. There used to be millions of hedgehogs in the UK - that has gone right down to under a million.
Follow them on social media: Facebook Twitter Instagram #hedgehogweek
Ways to help hedgehogs.....
In your garden...
- Make sure you have a 13cm x 13xm square gap in the bottom of boundary walls and fences so that hedgehogs have a hedgehog highway to come into and leave your garden. Please log your gap at the Big Hedgehog Map.
- Create log piles and piles of leaves, and leave corners and edges to grow wild; this will offer shelter to hedgehogs and attract natural food for them.
- Put several clean bowls of water around the garden – add a few pebbles so that butterflies and bees can drink too.
- If you’ve got a pond, make sure it’s got a way that tiny animals can get out – a ramp, or sloping edge, or a half submerged rock.
- Don’t use poisons and pesticides which could harm wildlife
- Put sports nets away. Raise garden netting to 30cm off the ground so that hedgehogs can safely go underneath it.
- Check bonfires for hedghogs before lighting them, and check lawns for wildlife before you mow. (Why not take part in Plantlife’s #NoMowMay and let your garden’s lawn grow?)
- Always remove litter. It can be deadly for wildlife.
- You could give hedgehogs food and water (not milk, please). Garden Wildlife Direct has hedgehog food and hedgehog houses you can buy online.
Help save Britain’s hedgehogs with ‘hedgehog highways’!
Hugh Warwick is an ecologist and author who's studied hedgehogs for 30 years+. A main reason why they did out is that our landscapes are fenced off into smaller fragments. Mr Warcik says we need to ensure new housing developments include hedgehog highways, a 13cm hole at the bottom of fences to allow hedgehogs to move from one garden to garden to find food and a mate.
Gather information - be informed
Read the State of Britain’s Hedgehog Report 2022 to find out what’s going on with hedgehogs – this report is produced every three or four years.
Take a look at the FAQs from the BHPS about hedgehogs – it’s got lots of useful information such as what to do if you find a hedgehog in your garden who looks like they are sunbathing, or appears drunk, and what’s the best food to give them etc.
The East Sussex Wildlife Rescue & Ambulance Service (WRAS) have a Hedgehog Experience so that you can finding out more about them.
Help with monitoring hedgehogs
There are a number of monitoring volunteer opportunities:
You could join Chester Zoo’s Hedgehog Watch - Chester Zoo needs locals who can help survey their back garden with motion-activated cameras. and be a citizen scientist!
Find out about the National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme
What if you haven't got a garden?
No problem! Hedgehog Street have lots of ways you can do your bit for these adorable animals.
Be a champ for hedgehogs!
Be a hedgehog champion! This project is run by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and the People's Trust for Endangered Species. It's free to join and there are already 126,000 champions helping hedgehogs! Find out more here.
Spread the word about how you can help hedgehogs with posters and leaflets from the BHPS.
Donate to the BHPS
They are hoping to raise £2,000 this Hedgehog Awareness Week throught their Just Giving campaign.
Become a member of the BHPS
You could join the BHPS from £7.50 for the year - it's a great way to keep in touch with all things hedgehog!
Finally, if you are able to get to central London on the 22nd June, you could join the Restore Nature Now march with lots of wildlife charities and organisations all standing up for nature. Nature has no voice – we need to send politicians a VERY clear message that we care about it and want to protect it, from hedgehogs to bumblebees. Find out more about the march here.
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