The hedgehog used to be a regular visitor to our garden, but, over the last 20 years, hedgehogs have declined by as much as 50% in parts of the UK, and it looks as though the decline is continuing in England and Wales.
This autumn we’re aiming to raise awareness about the decline of hedgehogs in Flintshire by linking into the Peoples Trust for Endangered Species’ (PTES) hedgehog street project, which gives people a chance to help hedgehogs in our local communities!
Historically, the hedgehog inhabited woodland edge habitat; over the years, it adapted to live happily in hedgerows and gardens. It was named after the habitat it lives in and the noise the prickly little mammal makes as it forages and searches for a mate. It is one of only three true hibernating mammals in the UK; along with bats and dormice, the hedgehog will spend six months of the year hibernating, where it will lower its heartbeat, body temperature and breaths per minute. A nocturnal, usually solitary, mammal, a hedgehog will travel about one mile in a night feeding on worms, beetles, spiders and slugs.
Reasons why hedgehog numbers have reduced so dramatically are not fully understood; there are lots of different factors affecting rural and urban hedgehogs, but the evidence indicates that both populations are declining.
Some factors affecting hedgehogs include habitat loss, loss of hedgerows, fewer rough field edges, poorly connected habitat, increased tidiness in our gardens, and impenetrable garden boundaries.
Top tips for helping hedgehogs:
Avoid using slug pellets, check piles of wood or garden debris before burning, install pond escape routes, leave space for log piles or a less tidy area of your garden, check long grass or vegetation before mowing or strimming, create 15cm sq access/exit point to and from your garden under fencing or gates.
What are we doing?
School/community group talks:
If you would like Flintshire County Council’s Biodiversity Officer to come into your school or to your community group, and provide a talk on hedgehogs, please contact her at [email protected]. School talks can be linked into curriculum topics.
More information:
If you want to find out anymore about hedgehogs from feeding, improving your garden, and what to avoid, we have information that we can send to you electronically or by post. Just contact us via the contact details below.
We also have a hedgehog online facility at http://www.cofnod.org.uk/ .Just go to the website and register. It’s very quick and easy, once you have registered, click on ‘record a species’ and you will see the ‘record a hedgehog’ button, just click on that and fill in the simple form.
If you want to find out more about becoming a hedgehog champion and helping your street/ community becoming more hedgehog friendly then visit www.hedgehogstreet.org
Some more hedgehog facts:
- Hedgehogs mostly eat insects like slugs, beetles caterpillars and worms.
- Hedgehogs are nocturnal, they can’t see very well but have good hearing and sense of smell.
- Hedgehogs can smell food under an inch of soil.
- Hedgehogs have a strange habit of covering themselves in frothy saliva when they come across a strong smell (it looks like they are covered in soap bubbles). No one knows why they do this.
- Hedgehogs have a small tail.
- Hedgehogs are covered in about 6,000 spines, which are actually a type of hair. Each spine drops out after a year and a new one grows.
- Young hedgehogs are called hoglets.
- When young hoglets are born, their spines are under the skin, and they will show after two weeks.
For more details, contact Sarah Slater, the Biodiversity Officer at Flintshire County Council: [email protected], 01352 703263
