When was the last time you saw a hedgehog? Once widespread and common, and voted in one poll Britain’s national species, hedgehogs have disappeared from large parts of our countryside and urban areas, with no clear plan on how to halt or reverse their decline.
Until now. Two wildlife NGOs, the People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) have been working together for many years on hedgehog conservation, and now they’ve produced a national conservation strategy for these much-loved mammals.
Since 2000, more than half of hedgehogs have disappeared from rural areas and about a third from towns and cities, though urban populations appear to be recovering in some places. The total population in England, Scotland and Wales is put at just under 900,000 individuals, but PTES says there is a lot of uncertainty around this figure.
It’s suspected that declines in abundance and diversity of beetles and earthworms – their favoured food items – in agricultural and other fields is a key factor. Loss and deterioration in the quality of the mix of habitats they like – from grasslands where they feed to scrub areas where they shelter, nest and hibernate – is another.
“I would love to travel back 15-20,000 years in time and see where hedgehog density was greatest, but I’m sure it would have been a mosaic habitat,” says Nida Al-Fulaij, chief executive of PTES.
PTES wants to work with landowners who are rewilding their land, such as the well-known Knepp estate in West Sussex, to see whether the restoration of scrubby, mosaic habitats is leading to benefits for hedgehogs.
Working with landowners – and farmers especially – will be a vital component of the new strategy. Assessing whether measures put in place under the new farm subsidy Environmental Land Management scheme (ELMS) help hedgehogs is critical, as is taking advantage of the new spatial wildlife plans known as Local Nature Recovery Strategies (LNRSs).
Supporting farmers so they can implement the right strategies (and also benefit themselves) will almost certainly be the most important thing to do, says Al-Fulaij.
Patrick Barker farms nearly 550 hectares of arable land in Suffolk and has been steadily implementing wildlife-friendly measures over the past two decades. But while other wildlife, such as farmland birds and pollinating insects, has recovered, hedgehogs are “just about holding on” rather than thriving.
“I’ve come to the conclusion that the best management for hedgehogs is a whole-farm approach,” he says. “Rather than trying to be specific, you need a landscape that can benefit everything.”
The hard work implementing the strategy begins now, says Al-Fulaij, and the next 10 years will be vital in determining whether the fortunes of Mrs Tiggy Winkle can be reversed. “Hopefully, in 10 years time, we will see large groups of stakeholders really committed to practical actions across the country and real habitat improvements in large areas,” Al-Fulaij adds.
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