Page 44 - BBC Wildlife Volume 36 #04
P. 44
2
3
4
1
9
Today, while numbers in rural areas continue to freefall, The story is not quite as simple as that, however. Closer
those of suburban hogs are showing a shift. interrogation of the data suggests that hedgehog populations
It is worth taking a look at what’s happening. The are becoming more isolated and that in the areas where
Living with Mammals survey, run by the People’s Trust hedgehogs remain, such as leafy suburbia, their populations
for Endangered Species (PTES), focuses on regular are slightly recovering. Which is good news, up to a point.
sightings of mammals in the built-up environment. And But isolated pockets of hedgehogs, such as those in the
in recent years, it has revealed an improvement in the countryside, are still vulnerable to localised extinctions.
fortunes of Britain’s favourite species (as voted in a 2013
BBC Wildlife poll). While the graph shows a hedgehog CONNECTING HABITAT
population decline of around 30 per cent over the period It would be a little presumptive to leap to the conclusion that
2003–13, since then it has levelled off. this is thanks to the work of the Hedgehog Street campaign,
the collaboration between the PTES and the British
Hedgehog Preservation Society. But it is the sort of result
JACKIE AND DAVID ARE TWO ORDINARY we would expect to see if its aim of joining up the nation’s
gardens was having an impact.
PEOPLE WHO HAVE USED THEIR OWN You might be excused for thinking that short-legged
UNDERSTANDING TO HELP HEDGEHOGS. beasts like hedgehogs don’t need vast areas to thrive. Yet
the reality is – and I can vouch for this, having radio-tracked
44 BBC Wildlife April 2018
