{"id":5134,"date":"2025-04-13T21:02:39","date_gmt":"2025-04-13T21:02:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ovra.org.uk\/wp\/home\/?page_id=5134"},"modified":"2026-04-09T17:09:36","modified_gmt":"2026-04-09T17:09:36","slug":"the-hedgehog-highways-project","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/ovra.org.uk\/wp\/home\/the-hedgehog-highways-project\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hedgehog Highways Project"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Map of Hedgehog Activity<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Launch Event<\/a>
The Decline of Hedgehogs<\/a>
How Can We Help Hedgehogs?<\/a>
If you find an ill or injured hedgehog…<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Monitoring Hedgehog Activity<\/a>
Borrowing and using a tunnel<\/a>
Identifying Tracks<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Reporting Hedgehog Activity<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Other Useful Websites<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gallery of Hedgehog Tracks and Photos<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Map of Hedgehog Activity<\/strong> in Onslow<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Click here<\/a> to see a larger version of the map.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scroll to the bottom of the page to see our gallery of footprints and photos.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Hedgehogs are in serious decline in the UK. Since 2000 it is estimated that we have lost 30% of our urban hedgehogs and 70% of our rural hedgehogs. Here in Onslow Village we want to do what we can to help them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Hedgehog Highways Project is a joint initiative with All Saints Eco Group, OVRA and the University of Surrey. The aim is to make our gardens as Hedgehog-Friendly as possible by ensuring there is plenty of food for them and that they can easily move from one garden to the next as they forage and look for mates and nest sites. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The project also involves monitoring and recording the hedgehog activity in the Onslow area using small mammal tracking tunnels and reporting the tracks to our local survey and the UniS survey, and any actual sightings to the National Survey. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Launch Event on 6th April 2025<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The slides used during Dr. Pirie’s talk can be viewed here.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Hedgehog<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We had a great turn out for the Launch Event at All Saints church hall, where Dr. Tara Pirie from UniS came to speak to us about the threats facing hedgehogs and how we can help. Dr. Pirie is a lecturer in Ecology and Conservation and is well qualified for tracking hedgehogs in suburbia, having spent 10 years tracking carnivores in South Africa, specialising in leopards in her final few years there! More recently she and her students have been monitoring hedgehog activity around the university and have made the campus as hedgehog friendly as they can. Hedgehog numbers appear to have been steadily increasing since they started looking for their tracks in 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Decline of Hedgehogs<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Dr. Pirie started by explaining the current plight of hedgehogs. In 2020 hedgehogs were added to the UK red list for endangered mammals, signifying that they are vulnerable to extinction. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Whilst recently there is some hope that the decline in urban areas may have slowed down, the decline in rural areas continues, with between a third and three quarters of the rural hedgehog population having been lost since 2000. It is thought that there are only about 800,000 hedgehogs left in the UK. Where they were previously common visitors to the gardens of Onslow, they are now rarely seen by most of us.<\/p>\n<\/div>

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The reason for the decline in rural areas is predominantly loss of habitat. In the country hedgehogs live and forage in hedgerows. As farmers remove hedgerows in order to make bigger fields the hedgehogs lose their nest sites and food source and disappear with the hedges. In addition the use of pesticides also affects their food supply and can poison the hedgehogs themselves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In urban areas there are other threats:<\/p>\n\n\n\n