Brits are banding together over the garden fence to save the country’s favorite little spiny critters – by carving tiny holes in the bottom of those fences and creating ‘hedgehog highways’.
Hedgehogs are much beloved in England as ideal gardening partners because they eat pesky slugs and insects, so it’s been an easy sell by the Hedgehog Preservation Society (HPS) to enlist homeowners in the creative conservation measure.
Since hedgehogs can explore up to one mile a day looking for food, shelter, and, especially, mates, they need plenty of space. Due to residential sprawl and the sturdy fences that inhibit the travel and reproduction of these nocturnal creatures, their population has plummeted by 30% in just the last decade.
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The HPS is touting several strategies for the public to help the prickly guys, such as cutting a 5×5 inch hole in your fence (which is just small enough to keep larger pets from escaping your yard), removing a brick or stone in your masonry wall, or simply switching to hedges.
You can also make sure your garden is safe for the highways by removing netting, ponds, or toxic slug pellets.
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More than 30,000 Hedgehog Champions have registered on the HPS website to take action, which has created friendly web of passages crisscrossing England.
If you want to become a Hedgehog Champion, find out more ways on how to support hedgehog life in your garden by visiting the Hedgehog Preservation Society website.
(CHECK Out the special traits of a hedgehog in the BBC video below) –Top photo by Riude, CC