Did you know that it’s Hedgehog Street’s 10th birthday this year? Our guest explains how its campaign has progressed, and what you can do in your garden to help.
Back in 2018 we had an interesting discussion around the lack of Hedgehog sightings in our gardens. Three years on, we thought we’d check in with the Hedgehog Street campaign to see what progress has been made, and help them celebrate their 10th birthday!
This is a guest post by Grace Johnson. All views expressed are Grace’s own and not necessarily shared by Which?.
Hedgehog Street began 10 years ago with just 15 volunteer Hedgehog Champions, who all pledged to make small hedgehog-friendly changes to their gardens. Now, I’m thrilled to say we have more than 90,000 Hedgehog Champions up and down the country who have made their gardens hedgehog havens!
We’d love to reach the magic 100,000 mark in our birthday year this year, and hope people continue to be inspired by the natural world and want to help the amazing species we have on doorsteps.
Happy Birthday to us! #HedgehogStreet, our joint campaign with @hedgehogsociety, has now been running for 10 years! Thank you to everyone who has taken part in whatever way and we're excited to see what the next 10 years bring. 🎉🎈
👉 Help us celebrate https://t.co/pnyPwngIOJ pic.twitter.com/M6cmCFB4sN
— People's Trust for Endangered Species (@PTES) March 8, 2021
We aim to encourage people to become ‘Hedgehog Champions’ (volunteers who pledge to make their gardens more hedgehog friendly) in order to help stop the ongoing decline of Britain’s favourite mammal.
10 ways you can help hedgehogs
To celebrate our 10th birthday this year, Hedgehog Street is asking members of the public to do 10 things to help hedgehogs throughout 2021:
#HedgehogStreetTurns10 🎉 Please share! https://t.co/pnyPwngIOJ@hedgehogsociety pic.twitter.com/kw2Ryu1dYo
— People's Trust for Endangered Species (@PTES) March 13, 2021
To add to the celebrations, a brand-new garden challenge is being launched this March, aiming to find out if the UK’s gardens are hedgehog havens, or if they’re in need of more hedgehog-friendly features to encourage prickly nighttime visitors.
Results from the quiz will offer tailored advice to those who take part and suggest simple improvements people can make.
Take a look at all the Which? gardening news, reviews and advice
Positive steps forward
The latest State of Britain’s Hedgehogs report, published in 2018 by BHPS and PTES and discussed here on Which? Conversation at the time, revealed that 50% of rural hedgehog populations and 30% of urban hedgehog populations have been lost since 2000.
Most recently, hedgehogs were listed as ‘vulnerable to extinction’ on the Red List for Britain’s Mammals, published in 2020.
However, there is some good news: the report indicated that the rate of decline in our towns and cities appears to be stabilising. That’s why we’re really pushing for everyone to do 10 things for hedgehogs during our birthday year, to build on this positive step forward and to help save this beautiful and iconic species from further decline.
If you are lucky enough to have a garden, do you do anything extra to help hedgehogs? Would you be able to take any of our 10 steps to help out? And when was the last time you saw one in your garden?
Let us know in the comments.
This was a guest post by Grace Johnson. All views expressed were Grace’s own and not necessarily shared by Which?.