Once a familiar and well-loved visitor to our gardens, hedgehog numbers have fallen significantly in the last few decades.
There has been a startling decline of 95% since the 1950s , with one in three lost since 2000. Now on the IUCN red list for mammals, in 2020 hedgehogs have been classed as vulnerable to extinction.
Threats to hedgehogs come mostly from humans. In rural areas, our farmland increasingly lacks the diversity of habitats hedgehogs need and the food they rely on.
In towns and cities green spaces are lost to development, paved over or increasingly fragmented. Hedgehogs are also very prone to road traffic accidents.
Urban areas such provide potential for protecting and strengthening existing hedgehog populations.
Hedgehog
(C) Tom Marshall
Hedgehog Way ...
... is bringing communities together to improve how habitats are connected to benefit hedgehogs.
Communities will improve linkages for hedgehogs between gardens and green spaces, for example by creating hedgehogs holes in fences, and residents will work with their neighbours to survey and track hedgehogs and improve habitats.
Over the past two years we have been working in Kingsway, Gloucester, and Charlton Kings and Swindon Village in Cheltenham to run our Hedgehog Way project. Below are some of the highlights from the now complete project, including the final report.
Hedgehog Way was kindly funded by the People's Trust for Endangered Species and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society
Read our hedgehog blogs below for more information on helping hedgehogs, and follow our links for 'Top Garden Tips' and 'Injury Advice'
What to give a hedgehog this Christmas
Help save hedgehogs this winter
Download our final Hedgehog Way project report below
Hedgehog Way project report
