Hedgehogs are heading for the cities: Numbers rising in urban areas but families asked to build them ‘highways’ in their gardens to help the prickly mammals
- Hedgehogs are now finding homes in cities after countryside populations fell
- The population in urban areas is stabilising around the 170,000 to 200,000
Hedgehogs are increasingly making cities their home after years of decline in the countryside, according to a report on the creatures in Britain.
The population in urban areas is stabilising around the 170,000 to 200,000 mark, experts found.
The first State Of Britain’s Hedgehogs report in 2011 found the numbers in cities had dropped by about a quarter since 2000 – but the decline has now ceased.
The first State Of Britain’s Hedgehogs report in 2011 found the numbers in cities had dropped by about a quarter since 2000 – but the decline has now ceased
Outside the city, between 30 to 75 per cent of hedgehogs are feared to have been lost in the last two decades, with the largest fall in eastern England.
The reasons are not fully understood but loss of habitat – particularly hedgerows – is among them. Nida Al-Fulaij, from the People’s Trust For Endangered Species and one of the authors of the report, said farmers needed to make their land more hedgehog-friendly.
In cities, residents are advised to create ‘hedgehog highways’ by making holes in their fences so they can move from one garden to another.
BHPS chief executive Fay Vass said: ‘Hedgehogs as we know them today have lived here for at least half a million years, but they’re now facing myriad pressures which are causing populations to plummet, particularly in the rural landscape.
‘The reasons for their decline are complex and aren’t yet fully understood, but two of the main pressures hedgehogs face in both rural and urban areas is lack of suitable habitat and habitat fragmentation.’
Author and naturalist Hugh Warwick said restoring hedges in the countryside would be a great help to hedgehogs.
‘They literally hog the hedges, they move along hedges and move along linear features.
‘The absence of hedges means they don’t have the same capacity to move across the landscape’.
Hedgehogs will also benefit from field margins that are not sprayed so there is a supply of food such as slugs, caterpillars and bugs.
Action is also still needed in towns and cities, where householders are advised to provide access through fences, and make their gardens suitable for hedgehogs.
One way to make city gardens more hedgehog friendly is to cut holes in fences so they can move from one garden to another – known to hedgehog preservation groups as ‘hedgehog highways.’
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