Hedgehogs are one of the UK’s best-loved mammals and sadly now in serious decline.

During the Covid-19 lockdown, we’ve challenged our ecologists to film their local wildlife using Trail-Cameras. Andrew Whitelee filmed this hedgehog in his garden.

Hedgehogs Erinaceus europaeus are one of the UK’s best-loved mammals and sadly now in serious decline.

Hedgehogs are covered in characteristic brown spines, are 20–25cm long and typically weigh up to 1.2kg. They have a distinctive waddling gait, long snouts and no spines on their underbellies, faces or limbs. They spend much of their lives asleep. Hedgehogs have about 5,000 spines on their bodies, each spine lasts about a year before falling out and a new one growing in its place.

They rely on hedgerows and woodland edges for food and shelter. They eat invertebrates, with beetles, slugs, earthworms and caterpillars high amongst their favourite food. Occasionally, they also eat carrion and the eggs of ground-nesting birds. They’re very partial to food left out by humans too, with cat food and leftovers being an urban hedgehog staple.

Did you know - Until the 1990s there was no set word for baby hedgehogs! The word ‘hoglet’ or even ‘hedgehoglet’ is now used colloquially.

While it is difficult to accurately monitor hedgehog numbers, it is believed they could be down by over half in rural areas and a third in urban areas since 2000.

Loss and damage of suitable habitat, such as hedgerows and woodland, may be a major factor in hedgehog decline, depriving the species of both food and shelter from predation. The use of pesticides on farmland
and in gardens may also have reduced hedgehog food supply. In urban areas, the use of impermeable fencing, loss of greenery in gardens and increasing development is thought to be negatively impacting hedgehog populations too. Another threat is roads, with many thousands of hedgehogs killed by cars each year.

If you are lucky enough to have a hedgehog in your garden and want to feed it, you should give it dog or cat food (not fish-based) or dog or cat biscuits. Hedgehogs are lactose-intolerant and therefore cannot drink cow’s milk. The traditional food of bread and milk is not advised, but do put water out for them in a shallow bowl, especially during hot periods in the summer.

Did you know - It was often said that you could catch fleas from a hedgehog, but this is not the case. The fleas that live on hedgehogs are specific to their host and will not move onto humans, cats or dogs.