Speaking after a UK report revealed that hedgehog numbers had plummeted by half since 2000, Dru Burdon, from the Jersey Hedgehog Preservation Group, said that although the Island’s population appeared to be stable, it was under threat from creeping urbanisation.
‘We admit just over 500 hedgehogs a year and have done for several years, so that indicates that the population is not dramatically going down.’ she said.
‘But my biggest bugbear over here is the new developments that close in gardens, preventing access for hedgehogs. They all have fences concreted into the ground or walls because people are so security conscious.’
And she added that the fashion for tidy and manicured gardens, with decking and artificial lawns, presented even more threats for the survival of local wildlife.
‘People can help hedgehogs by having nice wild areas or compost heaps, and having holes in fences to make sure they can come in and out,’ she said.
The UK report was produced by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society. It attributed the dramatic decline over 18 years to increasing urbanisation, intensive farming and road deaths.
However, it found that the decline in urban areas was being reversed by the Hedgehog Street campaign, in which neighbours come together to to make their gardens more hedgehog friendly and accessible.
‘When new estates are built in areas inhabited by hedgehogs, developers should make provision for hedgehogs to be able to move between gardens,’ Mrs Burdon said.
‘All it would take would be to have a hole at the bottom of one fence panel, or a five-inch pipe in concrete foundations. You can get ready-made gravel boards with wildlife holes in them, but I suppose that would come at a cost to the developer.’
The Jersey Hedgehog Preservation Group cares for sick, injured and orphaned hedgehogs under veterinary guidance and supervision and releases them
back into the wild once they are fit again, or old enough to be able to fend for themselves.
It currently has 150 hedgehogs waiting to be released once the weather gets warmer.
