How you can help Hedgehogs

摘要

The affection we Brits have for the humble hedgehog never fails to amaze. Last year it was voted our national wildlife icon by almost 10,000 readers of this magazine, making front-page news and BBC Two's Newsnight in the process. An ale, Old Prickly,was even brewed to celebrate its triumph. This year a series of linked back gardens at the Hampton Court Palace Flower Show will be devoted to hedgehog-friendly gardening, and there's a hedgehog festival in Ross-on-Wye, Hertfordshire, the town that has long used the 'urchin' or 'furze-pig' as its emblem.Yet the hedgehog is in real trouble in Britain. I often illustrate the scale of the threat by comparing its fortunes to those of another iconic mammal, the tiger. Wild tiger populations are falling rapidly, but the latest report from the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) and People's Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) found that hedgehog numbers had collapsed by 37 per cent in the past 10 years. Britain's hedgehogs are almost certainly disappearing faster than the global tiger population.