Extinct in 15 Years - Scary

And all the more reason we act to save our native hedgehogs

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Hedgehogs could soon be extinct with numbers dropping at a rate of 25 per cent a year (Picture: PA)
.Dr Bunnell claims the number of hedgehogs in Britain has decreased by 25 per cent over the last 10 years.


The causes she lists for this decline include pesticides eliminating scores of caterpillars and beetles - insects that hedgehogs feed on - as well as mowing, being caught in netting and fences and even drowning in garden ponds as they make their way from one garden to the next looking for food.


As they tend to share their habitats with predatory badgers in rural areas of the UK, the pricklier of the species is losing out.

Dr Bunnell's studies have also found that the hogs were being run over by vehicles at a rate of 50,000 a year.

This research comes at a time when red squirrels, natterjack toads and cuckoos have all been tipped to become extinct within the next five to ten years if current trends continue.

However, Dr Bunnell, who runs a hedgehog sanctuary in Holgate, said hedgehog number could be preserved by using wildlife-friendly slug pellets as opposed to pesticides, and providing the creatures with food and water.


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- New study by digital TV channel Eden reveals the top 10 most endangered species in the UK today
- Red Squirrels, Scottish Wildcats and Hedgehogs could all be extinct within the next 40 years
- Loss of habitat named as biggest threat to nation's indigenous animals

Red Squirrels, Scottish Wildcats and Hedgehogs are amongst the native UK species that are most at risk of extinction within the next 40 years. That's the verdict of a comprehensive new study on the indigenous species that have witnessed the biggest decline in population numbers over the last century - a study which suggests that some native UK species could soon become a footnote in natural history.

The 'Eden Species Report' was specially commissioned by the UK's leading natural history channel Eden. The research team, led by conservationist Doctor Toni Bunnell, from the University of Hull (lecturer retired), brought together all the available research and officially recorded sightings of numerous UK based species, including birds and mammals. The desk-based research was supplemented by expert opinion from wildlife specialists, conservation organisations and monitoring schemes to provide a compelling overview of UK-based wildlife most at risk.
The study, which looked at the reasons for each species' deterioration, as well as the estimated rate of decline and the recent population statistics, notes that two bird species are most at risk. The Red-Necked Phalarope is down to a dismal 36 breeding pairs in the UK, mostly on Fetlar, Shetland with a few dozen sighted elsewhere on autumn migration each year. Likewise, the Black-Tailed Godwit has seen a 33% decline in the past 15 years alone and is most at threat due to habitat loss.

The Turtle Dove has also suffered one of the most precipitous rates of decline in recent years. The migratory species which spends summer in Europe has witnessed a reduction in numbers of 90% in the UK since 1971. The study pinpointed hunting and fluctuating cereal crops in Africa during the species' winter migration as the biggest reason for its decline.
The study notes that other animals have suffered due to changes closer to home. The number of Scottish Wildcats has dwindled alarmingly in recent years due to loss of habitat and cross breeding with domestic cats. Similarly, the Capercaillie also known as the Woodland Grouse, has seen numbers decline greatly due to deer fencing, predation and lack of suitable habitat.



Hedgehog
Main Threats - Habitat loss, road traffic
Approx No. Left in the UK - 1,000,000
Estimate Rate of Decline - 25% over last 10 years

May be extinct by 2025

# 10. Hedgehog (Erinaceuseuropaeus)
Distribution
Patchily distributed throughout the UK, with the exception of the Scottish Islands.
What can be done to conserve it?
 Improve accessibility to gardens
 Provide food and water
 Rake through bonfires before setting alight
 Provide stepping out points in ponds
 Remove all trailing netting from gardens
 Use wildlife-friendly slug pellets
 Dispose carefully of tin cans and plastic rings for beer cans etc
Where can people go for more information?
 More information on the species can be found in The Mammal Society’s Mammals of the British Isles: Handbook
 Information on its conservation is available on the following websites:
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Well worth a read/look

They are one of the nation's favourite wild animals and the inspiration for Beatrix Potter's Mrs Tiggy Winkle.

But a drastic decline in the hedgehog population has prompted warnings the creatures could become extinct in little over a decade's time.

Now, entire communities have been told to join together to create hedgehog-friendly zones to save the species.

Householders will be asked to link their gardens with those of their neighbours by making holes in shared walls and fences, to increase the areas over which the animals can roam.

It is one of a series of new projects to be unveiled as part of efforts to stop the creature from vanishing from the UK.

Hedgehog numbers have dropped steeply over the last decade.

In urban areas, this has been blamed on fragmentation of their habitats by road and house building schemes as well as the effect of garden makeover television shows, which have encouraged people to pave over their gardens or cover them with decking, reducing areas for the creatures to live and feed.

Experts also believe the rising badger population and increase in urban foxes – which both eat hedgehogs – have further accelerated the decline. Domestic dogs have also been blamed.

At the same time, thousands of hedgehogs are killed on the roads every year, while more intensive farming practices are destroying their habitat in rural areas.

The People's Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) has embarked on a three-year campaign to save the creature.

Its main effort is the "Hedgehog Street" scheme to encourage neighbours to co-operate with one another to provide larger areas over which hedgehogs can roam and feed.

As well as making holes in shared fences to allow hedgehogs to pass between properties, neighbours will also be encouraged to ensure that their gardens provide suitable hibernation areas.

Residents will also be encouraged to provide conditions that will ensure a source of insects, including beetles, larvae, slugs, caterpillars, on which hedgehogs feed – such as log piles, piles of leaves, areas of long grass.

They will also be urged to leave out dog food and water to supplement the animals' diet, and to try to avoid using slug pellets – which remove an important food for the hedgehogs and could poison them – as well as to try to ensure they cannot fall in ponds. "Rescue ramps" from ponds are also to be encouraged.

The scheme is already being piloted at 17 locations around the country and is to be rolled out across the country later in the spring, with people to be urged to volunteer for the scheme.

Laura Bower, conservation officer at the organisation, said: "Hedgehogs wander around aimlessly looking for food, so once they found these holes in the fences, we think they would remember them and use them.

"We have detected the decline in their numbers. We need to slow it. There hasn't really been much attention in this area yet, but we now need to act.

Two monitoring surveys run by the organisation, as well as similar schemes from other groups, have plotted a significant decrease in the numbers of hedgehogs in recent years.

The British Trust for Ornithology is now drawing together the different research surveys to gather more precise data on the drop and to examine possible reasons.

At the same time, the PTES has also commissioned four other pieces of research, which are already under way, to provide greater understanding behind the decline in numbers, in order to further inform efforts to save the population.

The projects include:

– one that will examine the feeding habits of hedgehogs, to establish what resources are available for them,

– another that will study the hibernation areas used by the creatures and what threats these face,

– a separate project to try to establish the UK's hedgehog population size.

– the development of a device which will allow numbers to be more reliably monitored. The contraption, still under development, will be able to be left out for several days recording numbers

Prickly message to be sent to posties

You can challenge most environmental pressure groups with impunity these days: none opposed the Government’s forestry privatisation plans until popular protest was on the point of overturning them. But there’s one you defy at your peril – the tiny Hedgehog Preservation Society.

Where once-fearsome groups such as Friends of the Earth or the Campaign to Protect Rural England seem to roll into a ball when trouble approaches, the prickly 12,000-member society attacks the mightiest of opponents. It made the Scottish government scrap a cull of the animals on the island of Uist and even forced McDonald’s to change the shape of its McFlurry dessert containers to stop hedgehogs getting their heads stuck in them.

So pity the next target of its ire – the humble postie. The Post Office gets through two million rubber bands a day while binding up the mail, and the society is to mount a campaign to stop its workers simply discarding the bands: apparently, curious hedgehogs get them stuck around their bodies, where they tighten and embed themselves into the skin.

Next month, the society’s members will be sent postcards showing such a stricken beast, and be asked to hand them to their postie or send them to the local sorting office.

The Royal Mail would be well advised to give in at once: after all, a body that boasts Ann Widdecombe as a trustee can be trusted to punch above its weight.


More than 90,000 nature-lovers counted the wildlife in 70,000 gardens for the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) annual survey.

The Make Nature Count survey found foxes are still the most common wild mammal in gardens.

However hedgehogs are becoming increasingly frequent visitors.

The prickly animals, that inspired the Beatrix Potter character Mrs Tiggywinkle, are now regularly spotted in one quarter of all gardens.

In urban areas 30 per cent of people have seen hedgehogs in their gardens before, and more than one in seven see them regularly.

Hugh Warwick, a hedgehog expert at the RSPB, said intensive farming is forcing hedgehogs from the town into the country.

“The high numbers of hedgehogs in gardens prove what a refuge they can be, as a loss of quality hedgehog habitat in the countryside makes it increasingly difficult for them to survive further afield,” he said.

Hedgehogs have suffered a sharp decline in recent years because of roadkill and habitat loss. They are also killed by foxes and badgers. Some experts say numbers have halved in the last 15 years.

Mr Warwick said gardeners can boost numbers by leaving out cat food - rather than bread and milk - and not disturbing piles of wood or cuttings.

He pointed out the animals will reciprocate by eating all the slugs.

“The hedgehog not only brings a voracious appetite for garden pests, it represents a little bit of wildness.

“We should treasure the fact that they live comfortably in our gardens,” he said.

Very interesting reading also very said that they are on the decline .... glad we are trying to help gives the feel good factor ..x

jees thats scary - poor hoggles