Help the hog - a UK hedgehog needs you!

There is growing evidence that suggests we should be worried about the UK’s hedgehog population. A widespread, familiar and much-loved animal is becoming a scarcer sight.

This is why Devon Wildlife Trust set up its ‘Help the hog’ campaign and in 2011 many local people played their part.

There are three simple ways to get involved:

1) Help the hog in your garden

Take these five simple steps and make your garden a haven for a local hedgehog family.

• Solid fences and walls restrict a hedgehog’s movement through gardens. Make sure you leave small gaps at their bases
  
  
• Hedgehogs can swim but often drown in garden ponds because of their steep and slippery sides. Provide them with an escape route: a piece of wood, chicken wire or pile of stones
  
  
• Bonfires make good places for hedgehogs to nest. Check them to make sure a hedgehog has not made its nest before lighting
  
  
• Be prepared to leave a small part of your garden to go wild. Long grass, log/leaf piles and undergrowth provide foraging and nest places for the perfect hedgehog habitat
  
  
• Feed your local hedgehog, but please provide dog/cat food and not bread and milk.
  

For more tips

• Why not visit DWT's Wildlife Gardening webpages
• Download a hedgehog home making guide
• Play our great Help the Hog game ?
• Check out the video below of a hedgehog feeding at night!

2) Adoption

Take a few minutes to adopt a hedgehog today and help our work. Each adoption gets an activity pack and toy!

3) Survey

Our survey has now closed, we had over 3,000 records in! Thanks to everyone who took the time to take part. The survey suggests that hedgehogs continue to be found in more than one in three of Devon’s gardens. On the face of it this seems like good news. But as a counter to this, the owners of one in four gardens had never seen a hedgehog.

Of more concern is the one in four Devon gardens where hedgehogs had been spotted in the past but were absent during 2011. This contrasts with fewer than one in ten gardens where hedgehogs appeared during 2011 where they had not been spotted in previous years. There was also a marked urban/rural split in the results. People in Devon’s urban areas accounted for nearly eight out of ten of all responses (1,982 people) to the survey, compared to just two out of ten (559 people) coming from rural areas. The survey showed that hedgehogs seem to be more common in Devon’s towns and cities than in the wider countryside. 5 out of 10 of urban respondents saw a hedgehog in 2011, compared with just 3 out of 10 rural people.

Overall the survey’s results seem to confirm our suspicions and the evidence from studies elsewhere: hedgehogs in Devon are struggling. While remaining widespread, hedgehogs are now absent from many localities around the county. The problem seems especially acute in rural areas.

Help the Hog survey results at a glance

Based on 2,541 completed results for Devon.

• 38% of people (966 responses) saw a hedgehog in their garden last summer and had also seen them there in previous years
• 9% of people (229 responses) saw a hedgehog in their garden last year for the first time – ie they had not seen hedgehogs in their garden before
• 27% of people (686 responses) did not see a hedgehog in their garden last year, but had seen them there in previous years
• 25% of people (635 responses) had never seen a hedgehog in their garden

More information

For more information about hedgehogs visit our hedgehog species page or if you are keen why not take part in hedgehog street, a scheme run by the People's Trust for Endangered Species?