Help Hedgehogs!

HEDGEHOGS ARE IN DECLINE.

Sadly, our much-loved hedgehogs are threatened, having undergone considerable population decline in recent decades.

To reverse this trend, we need to remove the threats they face and put in place practical conservation measures.

But before we can do this effectively, we need to understand where and why hedgehogs are struggling. That's where the National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme comes in, and it's coming to Rothbury!

The NHMP aims to discover just how many of our spikey friends are rustling around any given area. Surveys that only indicate where hedgehogs are may not spot when they are struggling. Monitoring the actual numbers of adults and their hoglets can provide a warning if the population is in trouble.


Hey Hedgehogs, How Are You Doing?
Rothbury CAN Set Up England's Northern Most Hedgehog Monitoring


David Goff, Co-ordinator of Rothbury CAN's Hedgehog Group, gives the following report on the Monitoring Programm

Towards the end of June volunteers from Rothbury CAN set out to install thirty camera traps at Cragside Estate aiming to establish how well, if at all, hedgehogs are getting along in our neck of the woods.

The good folks at the National Trust had agreed to allow their iconic site to become the latest location for the National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme (NHMP), a conservation scheme launched by the People's Trust for Endangered Species and British Hedgehog Preservation Society in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, the Zoological Society of London, and Durham University.


Setting up so many cameras in one day promised to be no small task and initially we were worried that we may not be able to rustle up enough helping hands. However, we had underestimated the fondness felt for our spikey friends as well as the generous nature of local folks and we ended up having to cap the number of volunteers as so many people wanted to be involved.

Build a Hedgehog House

Hedgehog numbers in the countryside have fallen by at least 30%, possibly 75% since 2000. A really worrying number is this one:

it is thought that there are only about one million of the creatures left in the UK.

In fact, 'they are disappearing as fast as tigers worldwide'. wildaboutgardens

For the last few years, Rothbury CAN has hosted hog house building events, with Paul Allen from The Barn.