European hedgehogs are perhaps the most beloved mammal in the United Kingdom. When the BBC Wildlife Magazine ran a poll a few years back asking readers which species should be the national icon, hedgehogs triumphed. But these endearing, small, strange, slug-munching, spiky creatures — named for their pig-like noses and the hedgerows in which they thrive — are being destroyed across the country that holds them so dear. It’s estimated that Great Britain’s hedgehog population has dropped by 90 to 95 percent since the second world war. Today, there are less than 1 million.
Industrial agriculture has driven the loss of hedgerow habitat that long characterized the British countryside, while farms’ use of pesticides is wiping out the insects that hedgehogs eat. Meanwhile, housing developments are breaking up habitat into smaller and more fragmented parcels, and motor vehicles every year mow down around 100,000 hedgehogs. That’s about one hedgehog in every five nationwide. There are other, smaller threats too that add up, from drowning in uncovered swimming pools to getting caught in litter rubber-bands and fast food cups. In 2020, hedgehogs were listed as vulnerable to extinction in the next twenty years on the Red List for British Mammals. Tragically, they have a lot of company. More than 40 percent of UK species have seen their populations plummet in recent decades.
But while the future of hedgehogs remains precarious, there is grounds for hope. Across Britain, people are turning their love for these creatures into action to try to save them in significant, surprising, and delightful ways. Take the country’s hedgehog highway, for example. Hedgehogs need up to 30 hectares worth of territory — around the size of an 18-hole golf course — to forage for food and find mates, but the average U.K. garden is a tiny fraction of that size. The Hedgehog Street project was launched ten years ago in an attempt to link these habitats by asking homeowners to put 13 inch diameter holes through their garden fences to give hedgehogs the pathways they need to survive. Nearly 14,000 such holes have since been created, linking entire neighborhoods and towns.
This up-swelling of attention, love, and effort for hedgehogs is thanks in no small part to the contagious enthusiasm, relentless obsession, vision, and passionate career-long commitment of our guest, ecologist and hedgehog expert Hugh Warwick. Warwick has studied, celebrated, written about, and fought to protect hedgehogs and other British wildlife for more than 30 years. He is the spokesperson for the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and the author of five brilliant books on British fauna, including most recently The Hedgehog Book and Linescapes: Remapping and Reconnecting Britain’s Fragmented Wildlife, which explores the impacts of manmade lines — including hedges, roads, walls, powerlines, and canals — on the ability of wild animals to thrive.
In this episode, we speak with Warwick about why hedgehogs need our help, his role as the spokesperson for the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, the national campaign he is leading to make “hedgehog highways” a legal requirement for new housing, the extraordinary impacts of manmade lines — such as walls, roads, and power lines — on the ability of wild animals to thrive, and the importance of loving your hedgehogs.
Continue reading Ep. 41 – Ecologist Hugh Warwick on loving your hedgehogs
