Many readers will be familiar with the poem often spoken in the UK at this time of year which reads ‘Remember, Remember the 5^th of November.” For most, the next line would run “Gunpowder, treason and plot” but my mind automatically follows this up with “Remember to check for hedgehogs”. This is all thanks to a campaign to protect hedgehogs which has been running from as far back as my childhood. A well-stacked pile of logs seems to a hedgehog to be an ideal spot to curl up and go to sleep. They are not to know that it may be prepared in readiness for a blaze on Bonfire Night.  Back then, as I dug into my black peas and treacle toffee, the very idea of Mrs Tiggy-winkle being caught off guard haunted me. It still does. Nonetheless, I am very grateful to those who spearheaded the campaign to raise awareness of our humble hedgehog and those who do what they can to keep them safe today (such as #RememberHedgehogs on Instagram and a webpage giving top tips on what to do if you do find a hedgehog in an unlit bonfire heap).

Under Pressure

The message is more important today than it ever was. In 2024, the Western European Hedgehog was added to the IUCN Red List for species under near threat of extinction.  The monitoring that led to this status found that there had been a decline of at least 30% of hedgehogs over the past decade and populations are continuing to decrease. To reverse that trend, we need to do more than just check our bonfire heaps: we need to rewild.

Rewilding tends to involve people operating at a landscape scale. In fact, many people would argue that this is the only sense in which the word can accurately be used. Afterall, it’s only at a landscape scale that our ecosystems can be returned to self-sustaining systems. Most readers may therefore feel powerless to take much practical action to protect or restore the species that I write about in my rewilding species series. It’s one of the reasons why Wild Card was set up – to enable people to put pressure on those who can rewild on a landscape scale. However, when it comes to the hedgehog, if you are lucky enough to own a garden, then there’s a whole lot that you can do by “rewilding” or wilding your own little patch of land.

Get Messy for Hedgehogs

Which brings me to another reason why November is an opportune time to remember hedgehogs. It is often at this time of year that people set to tidying up their gardens. Here I will provide you with a new mantra which gives you an excuse to put your feet up instead: Neatness is the enemy of wildness.  Life abounds in weedy corners and messy hedges and edges and the invertebrates which provide a feast for hedgehogs will thrive in old flower stalks, leaf litter and dead wood. Whilst you can source a range of luxury hedgehog houses online, leaving a mess in your garden will also provide the building materials that hedgehogs can use to create their own shelter and keep them warm through their winter hibernation. Brambles in particular will help them to feel protected so go steady with the secateurs. 

If you have a garden pond, don’t put your feet up just yet though. Hedgehogs are great swimmers but if they end up in the water and can’t get out then they can die of exhaustion so be sure there is some sort of ramp or other means of escape. Also be vigilant to what’s happening in your garden during flash flooding in case structural garden features become like swimming pools.

Be Hedgehog Aware

It may be that you can’t give your garden completely over to wildness. Perhaps you need a space for your grandkids to have a kick about or you want a more ordered area to grow onions for the apocalypse. If this the case, I would urge you to proceed with care when getting out the strimmer.  Hedgehogs marvellously evolved to protect themselves by curling up into a spikey ball rather than running for shelter. However, at that point they had not counted on the invention of the electric strimmer. Hedgehog rescue centres often step in to save lives in gardening related injuries.  One hedgehog fan became so frustrated at the damage being done he designed hedgehog aware stickers that can be put on your strimmer or lawnmower as a reminder. He even got some big-name brands like Hyundai to automatically incorporate the stickers in the assembly line process. Before you start any work, check for hedgehogs; even in the warmer months, there may be one of the little fellows hidden in the undergrowth having a nap. 

How to age a hedgehog

Another way that you can help is by setting up a feeding station. This is especially true at this time of year when hedgehogs need to fatten themselves up before hibernation. There are legends telling of hedgehogs stealing milk by suckling on cows’ udders in the night. Hedgehog legs may be longer than you imagine but I’m still not sure this would be possible. Even if it were, hedgehogs are lactose intolerant, so milk is not a good choice. If you are feeding them, then avoid the classic bread and milk. 

Hedgehogs have also been accused of scrumping apples by rolling around in the windfall until they stick on their spikes and then scarpering. Despite this idea dating as far back as the writings of the Roman philosopher and naturalist Pliny the Elder, hedgehogs do not have a winter store of fruit that they can pop into whenever they need a snack. Unlike squirrels, when hedgehogs hibernate, they properly pause without recourse to midnight feasts. They have adapted their metabolism accordingly and reduce bone growth during their hibernation. This is why you can age a hedgehog by counting the growth lines along its jawbone, in the same way that you can age a tree by counting its annual growth rings. (A fact that is not only interesting but also helps in scientific studies). When hedgehogs hibernate, they are at rest completely, only emerging when the temperature warms in the Spring. They are therefore totally reliant on having eaten sufficiently before they settle down for a long winter’s nap. This all works fine when nature is in balance and there are plenty of invertebrates around for the hedgehogs to forage on. Though their eyesight is poor, they can easily sniff out a meal and can even hear worms and beetles moving underneath the soil. However, with the use of pesticides and loss of habitat leading to an ever-decreasing number of invertebrates, you may be worried that your local hedgehogs might not be getting enough. Happily, there’s plenty of advice online if you would like to supplement their diet, especially as the temperature begins to drop.

first aid for hedgehogs

We also need to be hedgehog aware during extreme heat and droughts such as those we saw this summer when many hedgehogs found themselves in trouble. Hedgehog rescue centres across the country were inundated with hoglets who could not get enough milk due to a dehydrated mother and hedgehogs who were unable to dig for insects in the hardened ground. You can help in such times by ensuring there are areas of natural shade in your garden and providing fresh water and additional food. Also watch out for hedgehogs who are looking tired and wobbly, especially if they are out in the daytime, and contact a local rescue centre or check out the British Hedgehog Preservation Society for first aid advice.

Hedgehog Highways

Going wild for hedgehogs and doing your best for them on your patch is not enough to solve all their problems though. In this, the plight of the hedgehog reveals a key element of all rewilding projects, both large and small: the need for connection. No matter how great a place is, for wildlife to fully thrive it needs to be linked up to other wonderful wild spaces to enable genetic diversity, adaptation and survival. This may be through neighbouring land which is equally managed with nature in mind, or it may be via wildlife corridors, strips of land or water which connect wild places. In an urban setting, these wildlife corridors can include your garden.  Hedgehogs can travel up to 2 miles in one night to find food or to meet their lovers (the plural here is intentional as both male and female hedgehogs are pretty promiscuous). They can’t make such epic journeys if they are met with an impermeable barrier such as the ones that so often demarcate one garden from another.  Your new garden fence could be the one thing that gets in the way of your local hedgehogs’ happiness. That’s why it’s good to choose a hedgerow instead of a fence or a fence with gaps that are the width of a CD case. If you’ve already got a fence but want to welcome the hedgehogs back, then you can always cut a hedgehog sized hole. Some people even install hedgehog highway signs to highlight what they’ve done and get conversations going with the neighbours.

There’s a growing awareness of the plight of hedgehogs beyond the bonfires and many people are already becoming hedgehog champions in their neighbourhoods. Whole streets are adapting to lengthen the hedgehog highways and some new builds are being developed with hedgehogs in mind. There is therefore hope for our urban hedgehogs and their numbers seem to be stabilising.

Unfortunately, in rural settings, the future is not so bright. The State of Britain’s Hedgehogs 2022 report found that numbers have plummeted by as much as 75% in some rural areas since 2000. A staggering statistic that should sharpen our focus in helping to save this much-loved species from extinction.

“Mr Badger he’s a kind-hearted gentleman”

The solutions must not be simplistic but well-informed and researched. An article in last month’s Daily Mail put the hedgehog decline down to the legal protection of badgers since the 1990s. It is true to say that a badger will eat a hedgehog if they are very hungry, but predation is rare. Badgers are opportunistic feeders and will choose whatever food source is easiest and that is seldom a prickly hedgehog. Hedgehogs and badgers have also happily co-existed across the UK for thousands of years; they have even been recorded foraging at the same site. That said, where badger numbers are high the two species generally tend to occupy different spaces as both compete for the same macro-invertebrates.  Studies suggest that it is the lack of available food and habitat for both species to enjoy that affect co-existence rather than predation. 

There are also many rural spaces where there are very few, if any, badgers but where hedgehogs have still seen a decline, notably arable areas where the use of pesticides and chemical fertilizers has reduced the number of invertebrates. Though it might be easier to point towards badgers, the evidence is pointing towards humans. 

Are hedgehogs aptly named?

Changes in hedgerow management have also made it more difficult for hedgehogs to move around the landscape and nest. Restoring hedgerows and wilder edges to our landscapes is therefore an obvious solution in helping our hedgehogs. They are called hedgehogs after all; the clue is in the name. Perhaps more fitting these days would be their original name of urchin (did you know sea urchins are basically sea hedgehogs). Though the word came from the French for spiny, it has come to mean a poor and homeless little thing. 

Yet hedgehogs have existed since before farmland hedgerows. They have been snuffling about for 15 million years and have outlived sabre-toothed tigers. They may have adapted to our hedgerows but they also enjoy foraging in the leaf litter and the deadwood of our deciduous woodlands and they love the scrubland that emerges between field and forest where a multitude of insects abound beneath the protection of the prickly bramble and thorn. A rewilded rural landscape would provide them with the perfect home.

This year the nation has voted for hedgehogs to represent mammals on the next series of banknotes. Alongside puffins, bumblebees and barn owls they provide an image of UK wildlife but without action to protect and restore their habitats, these banknotes could become a portrait of the past.