[You must be registered and logged in to see this image.]The reality is that as for other wildlife things are getting pretty desperate for our native hedgehog. The numbers in the UK just fifty years ago were estimated at 36 million. The present estimation from surveys is a meagre one million. The majority of these are now most likely urban dwellers. Hedgehogs are a good indicator of the health of our habitats being insectivorous. Large numbers of hedgehogs would indicate good numbers of insects which would then point at good ground habitat and plants needed by insects. Sadly hedgehog numbers are not telling us that this is so.
We need for the future to see changes in the countryside for our native hedgehog. These however are not simple matters and require the input of governments and land owners to see these changes, (of course public opinion will also have a part to play). However anyone with a garden is a land owner no matter how small that garden, if you link twenty small gardens together that becomes the area a hedgehog will need to forage.
So this isn't the end but it needs to be the beginning of a change of attitude. If a creature so well known and often seen (even if it was on the road dead), has now become a rare sighting then nothing can be taken for granted and everyone needs to get involved in making our countryside and urban places the natural spaces that our wildlife needs to have a future.
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Tue May 14, 2013 7:57 pm
