Hedgehog Awareness Week

We’re currently fascinated by a hedgehog that’s been visiting our garden for the past few evenings.

Since discovering we were on a hedgehog highway last year we’ve made a point of leaving food out for our prickly friends – and they never fail to visit each night.

Then, this evening we had a visit from two hogs – but whilst watching them a patter of feet accompanied by the expected snorting alerted us to another visitor. But it wasn’t just one, but another pair. As we sat by our open french window we had four hedgehogs inches away from us.

These lovely creatures are thought to be in decline so anything that can be done to help them is to be encouraged.

Please do at least one extra thing to raise awareness of the hedgehogs’ plight during Hedgehog Awareness Week.

You might contact the council or a local tool hire company and ask them to use the free strimmer stickers on their machines –
(see https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/hedgehog-heroes-roll-honour/) You might organise an event such as a coffee morning, cake sale, jumble sale, sponsored event or fun day.

You could text HHOG18 £5 to 70070 to donate £5 to BHPS. (You can change amount to £1, £2, £3, £4, or £10 donate those amounts). You can also find a JustGiving Appeal page at https://www.justgiving.com/campaigns/charity/bhps/haw18… and if you are holding an event or doing a sponsored something you can link in with The British Hedgehog Preservation Society there.

You might also encourage the display of information in a library, school or garden centre or you could post leaflets in your area letting people know how to help hedgehogs in their gardens.

If you find a hedgehog you’re concerned about use gardening gloves to pick it up, take it indoors and put it in a high sided cardboard box with an old towel or fleece in the bottom for the hedgehog to hide under.

If it’s cold fill a hot water bottle so that when it is wrapped in a towel there is a nice gentle heat coming through and put that in the bottom of the box with the hedgehog, ensuring it has room to get off the bottle and making sure the bottle is kept warm (if allowed to go cold it will do more harm than good). Put the box somewhere quiet.

Offer meaty cat or dog food and fresh water then call The British Hedgehog Preservation Society on 01584 890 801 for further advice and the numbers of local contacts. Note that out of office hours there is an answerphone, if you have a hedgehog, press option 1 and listen to the emergency numbers, these volunteers are not representatives of BHPS but they will give you advice and numbers of local contacts.

Hedgehog Awareness Week runs from 6th – 12th May 2018.