NOV 11 - A Plea for the Hedgehog

When was the last time you saw a live hedgehog? I ask the question as my failing memory cannot recall seeing one at all this year and other people are telling me the same. Hedgehogs seem to becoming yet another one of our native species that we used to see regularly but now we don’t.

That the hedgehog population is declining significantly is difficult to scientifically quantify. They are difficult to survey due to their preferred night time activities and perhaps it wasn’t that long ago we took them for granted because they were seen so regularly that it wasn’t thought that they might be in difficulty. Paradoxically, apart from the ‘hearsay’ evidence, one of the main ways to measure their apparent decline is that there are fewer dead hedgehogs on the road. Road casualties are now becoming quite a good evidence base for assessing the fortunes of some our bigger mammals these days.

Going back in time, hedgehogs have been romanticised and vilified in equal measure. Under the Preservation of Grain Act of 1566, an act that was not repealed until 300 years later, hedgehogs were wrongly classified as vermin and therefore attracted a bounty, with the consequence that thousands upon thousands were unnecessarily killed. Although not a widespread practice, hedgehogs were often eaten by us humans, the preferred recipe was the poor animal being stuffed with sage and onion, then coated in clay and spit roasted over an open fire.

Unsubstantiated myths abound when it came to hedgehogs. One long enduring myth is that they suckle milk from a cow’s udder though apparently no-ne has actually observed this, while another is that in the autumn hedgehogs deliberately roll over fallen apples so their prickles spike them and they can then take them to a favoured store. There is even a 14th Century painting that shows a hedgehog collecting apples on its spines!

In a more positive light, hedgehogs are often depicted favourably in children’s stories such as Beatrice Potter’s Mrs Tiggy-Winkle and Alison Uttley’s Fuzzypeg in ‘Little Grey Rabbit’. Gardeners are, of course, very fond of hedgehogs as they like nothing more than tucking into slugs and snails, although our propensity to go for nice tidy gardens, along with the increase in use of slug pellets, can also contribute to making life difficult for them.

About this time of year, hedgehogs are thinking about settling down for the winter, although full hibernation doesn’t take place until November. In warm spells during the winter they will often wake up, have a look round for some food and renew their nest. Hibernation time is when hedgehogs are at their most vulnerable. Young ones born later in the year tend not to put on enough weight to see them through the winter, plus that if they wake up and go out in search for food and the temperature falls rapidly they can die of cold.

Rather unfortunately, at the time when they are just ready to hibernate, we build them perfect shelters with our bonfires, so an annual plea goes out from organisations like ours to ask people to check the bottom of bonfires for signs of sleeping hedgehogs before setting them alight.

By no means currently endangered, it would nevertheless be a real shame if this endearing, harmless and beneficial animal was allowed to disappear from our world; they don’t require much, just a good, clean source of food free from poison and somewhere safe to see out the winter. It’s not too much to ask that we provide this for them - is it? www.sussexwt.org.uk

By Mike Russell, Sussex Wildlife Trust

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