Conservation & Ecology
are found in nearly all lowland habitats, but are most abundant where there is grassland close to woodland, scrub or hedgerow. Urban and suburban gardens are particularly important for food and nesting. They generally live between three to five
years, but that timespan increases to eight or more when fed a balanced diet in captivity. Hedgehogs are preyed upon by badgers, but little else poses a threat to them, apart from crossing busy roads! Hedgehogs normally come out at night
©BHPS
Hedgehogs - how you can help? Create your own hedgehog highway
To save the hedgehog, people need to work together with neighbours to make small changes that will make a big difference. This is crucial because no garden or green space can help hedgehogs in isolation but, when they are linked together, hedgehogs can thrive in any location.
Hedgehogs need to be able to roam far and wide in search of food, mates and nesting sites. Get together with your neighbours to cut a 13cm x 13cm (5in) hole in your fence or dig a channel beneath garden boundaries to connect your gardens.
Create your own hedgehog highway! Avoid the use of pesticides
Ditch the slug pellets and avoid the use of pesticides. Hedgehogs are natural “pest” controllers and need a plentiful and varied supply of invertebrate prey to stay healthy.
Make water safe
Hedgehogs are great swimmers but can sometimes struggle to climb out of steep- sided ponds and many drown. Provide a ramp from a plank wrapped in chicken wire or create shallow areas at the edge so they can scramble out.
Provide nesting sites
Log and leaf piles, wilderness areas and purpose-built hedgehog homes make great places for hedgehogs to nest and hibernate. Fallen leaves also make the perfect nesting material, so make sure you don’t clear all of these away.
Grow a wide variety of plants
Attract plenty of natural hedgehog food by keeping your planting diverse and with a wide variety of habitats, e.g. ponds, log piles, hedges and a wide range of plant types. Don’t be afraid to let your grass grow a little wild and leave some leaf litter, as both are important homes for the hedgehog’s prey.
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and will often travel large distances, stopping to feed at various places along the way. Hedgehogs are very useful to have in the garden as they eat many common garden pests such as caterpillars, beetles and slugs. They also eat earthworms, young mice and voles and take eggs and chicks of ground- nesting birds. Hedgehogs hibernate for five to six months during the winter in nests built from leaves and grass under hedgerows, in old rabbit burrows, underneath compost heaps and in piles of grass clippings. The attractions of a golf course or the
surrounds of a sports field are ideal habitats for hedgehogs and we would urge that they become an integral part of any ecological plan. It is also important that all staff have the mindset to ‘check first’ before shovelling compost, raking leaves or disposing of grass clippings as the warm interiors of these areas are ideal habitats for the little creatures. If you have young children, hedgehogs are the perfect animal to introduce them to conservation and, by building them homes or leaving parts of your domestic garden ‘wild’, you will be helping not only hedgehogs, but a plethora of other wildlife. If you put out food for hedgehogs, they
will eat it, but please do not give them bread and milk (a once common practice) as they are lactose intolerant. Bread is also low in
energy, so is fairly worthless to them. The hedgehog’s natural diet of creepy-
crawlies become much scarcer during the winter months, so they will benefit hugely from a shallow dish of water and supplementary feeding. They will relish any combination of the following: meat-based dog or cat food, unsalted chopped or crushed peanuts, sunflower hearts and dried meal worms. Place the food (and water) in separate shallow dishes - a saucer is ideal - and put them in a sheltered area around sunset. To avoid the food you put out being eaten by pets or foxes, make a feeding station that is difficult for anything larger than a hedgehog to access. You could use a piece of piping, or build a shelter out of bricks and paving stones. If these are placed outside conservatory or clubhouse windows, interested children and/or members can watch to their heart’s content as hedgehogs are not spooked, much like birds and badgers, by slow movement behind glass. Resist the temptation to shine a torch straight at them though. Additionally, camera flashes may well frighten them off, but they soon return. All the methods employed in a garden are
transferable to the golf course or sports club and vice versa. Hedgehogs present no health threat and do not carry fleas, as old wives once believed!
Further information and helpful advice is available from:
The Wildlife Trusts. Visit
www.wildlifetrusts.org to find your local trust.
The British Hedgehog Preservation Society -
www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk
Peoples Trust for Endangered Species -
www.ptes.org
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