Mon, 27 Jan 2025 03:38:18 +1100
Andrew Pam <xanni [at] glasswings.com.au>
https://reasonstobecheerful.world/hedgehog-highways-conservation-uk/
"When Judy Oliphant, an English nurse living in the southwestern county of
Devon, stumbled upon a family of hedgehogs in her stable one day, she was
surprised. The small, spiny animals were becoming a rare sight in the
countryside. She quickly covered the family back up with the wood shavings
they’d nestled under, but when she went back the next day, she found the babies
scattered around the barn and squeaking shrilly. The mother was nowhere to be
seen, and Oliphant soon discovered that she had been hit by a car on a nearby
road.
“It was the first night that my partner, Alan, had moved in with me,” she
remembers. “We had a slap-up meal [prepared] and a bottle of prosecco in the
fridge, chilling nicely, but instead of a nice romantic meal and an evening
together, we were sat up in bed with an eardropper and two blobs that we were
trying to feed and toilet all through the night.”
That was 18 years ago. Since nursing those two orphaned hoglets through the
night, Oliphant has rescued thousands of hedgehogs — and any other sick or
injured mammal or bird brought to her. In 2020 she and her partner, Alan Pook,
founded Prickles in a Pickle, a hedgehog rescue and rehabilitation center that
runs with the help of more than 40 volunteers.
These days more and more British hedgehogs need rescuing. They may be covered
in sharp spines, but that’s no defense against the habitat loss and
fragmentation that’s primarily driving the species’ significant decline across
the UK. And their spines are certainly no match for cars, another frequent
killer of hedgehogs in both rural and urban areas. Although it’s difficult to
glean exact numbers, scientists estimate that Britain has lost about a third of
its hedgehogs since 2000.
In the last few years, however, there’s been increased public awareness of
their plight — and an upwelling of support for hedgehog conservation,
particularly in towns and cities. In urban areas, hedgehogs love to travel
between gardens, where there are usually plenty of insects to feed on and nooks
to hide in. But with most gardens surrounded by fences and walls, hedgehogs
can’t gain access to those critical refuges.
Due in large part to habitat loss and fragmentation, it’s estimated that the
UK’s hedgehog population has dropped by a third in the last 25 years. But
conservation efforts are beginning to slow the decline.
Give them any kind of opening, however, and hedgehogs will squeeze their way
in. So a major prong of the hedgehog conservation strategy is to cut tiny holes
in garden fences, which allows hedgehogs to come and go as they please.
Connecting urban gardens this way creates what are known as hedgehog “highways”
— and they’ve been spreading across British towns and cities. A 2021 study
estimated that more than 120,000 such highways connected about 240,000 gardens
across the UK, which amounts to about one percent of all residential gardens in
the country.
Because gardens make up nearly a third of Britain’s urban areas, creating
hedgehog highways can substantially increase the amount of habitat available to
hedgehogs. In 2022, a study found that these corridors may be helping urban
hedgehog populations recover their numbers."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
"When Judy Oliphant, an English nurse living in the southwestern county of
Devon, stumbled upon a family of hedgehogs in her stable one day, she was
surprised. The small, spiny animals were becoming a rare sight in the
countryside. She quickly covered the family back up with the wood shavings
they’d nestled under, but when she went back the next day, she found the babies
scattered around the barn and squeaking shrilly. The mother was nowhere to be
seen, and Oliphant soon discovered that she had been hit by a car on a nearby
road.
“It was the first night that my partner, Alan, had moved in with me,” she
remembers. “We had a slap-up meal [prepared] and a bottle of prosecco in the
fridge, chilling nicely, but instead of a nice romantic meal and an evening
together, we were sat up in bed with an eardropper and two blobs that we were
trying to feed and toilet all through the night.”
That was 18 years ago. Since nursing those two orphaned hoglets through the
night, Oliphant has rescued thousands of hedgehogs — and any other sick or
injured mammal or bird brought to her. In 2020 she and her partner, Alan Pook,
founded Prickles in a Pickle, a hedgehog rescue and rehabilitation center that
runs with the help of more than 40 volunteers.
These days more and more British hedgehogs need rescuing. They may be covered
in sharp spines, but that’s no defense against the habitat loss and
fragmentation that’s primarily driving the species’ significant decline across
the UK. And their spines are certainly no match for cars, another frequent
killer of hedgehogs in both rural and urban areas. Although it’s difficult to
glean exact numbers, scientists estimate that Britain has lost about a third of
its hedgehogs since 2000.
In the last few years, however, there’s been increased public awareness of
their plight — and an upwelling of support for hedgehog conservation,
particularly in towns and cities. In urban areas, hedgehogs love to travel
between gardens, where there are usually plenty of insects to feed on and nooks
to hide in. But with most gardens surrounded by fences and walls, hedgehogs
can’t gain access to those critical refuges.
Due in large part to habitat loss and fragmentation, it’s estimated that the
UK’s hedgehog population has dropped by a third in the last 25 years. But
conservation efforts are beginning to slow the decline.
Give them any kind of opening, however, and hedgehogs will squeeze their way
in. So a major prong of the hedgehog conservation strategy is to cut tiny holes
in garden fences, which allows hedgehogs to come and go as they please.
Connecting urban gardens this way creates what are known as hedgehog “highways”
— and they’ve been spreading across British towns and cities. A 2021 study
estimated that more than 120,000 such highways connected about 240,000 gardens
across the UK, which amounts to about one percent of all residential gardens in
the country.
Because gardens make up nearly a third of Britain’s urban areas, creating
hedgehog highways can substantially increase the amount of habitat available to
hedgehogs. In 2022, a study found that these corridors may be helping urban
hedgehog populations recover their numbers."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
