LET’S make South Gloucestershire a hedgehog friendly zone

National hedgehog day falls on 2 February, and the awareness day coincides with the start of a new initiative from South Gloucestershire Council to help the area’s hedgehogs recover and thrive.

Hedgehog numbers have been in decline over the last 20 years, and in order to help aid their recovery and as part of our nature recovery vision, we are working with 15 town and parish councils, including Thornbury and Yate town councils, to make South Gloucestershire a hedgehog friendly zone.

We want people in the area to become hedgehog heroes and create hedgehog holes in their gardens, providing safe routes, or ‘highways’, to help them to find food and shelter. Hedgehog holes are typically 13cm holes in garden fences, walls or gates that enable hedgehogs to safely access a network of gardens. Our ultimate aim is for 3,000 to be created across the area.

Hedgehogs feed on a range of bugs and beetles and are an indicator species – where the health of their population reflects the condition of wider ecosystems. The decline of the hedgehog population points to a general decline in the natural world and hedgehogs are now recognised as being vulnerable to extinction and are protected in the UK.

There are hedgehogs living in our towns and cities as well as in our rural areas. Those in built up areas seem to be showing signs of stabilising so we are particularly focusing on our rural populations to help them recover.

We’ll be encouraging people to take part over the next 12 months and the benefits are expected to continue for many years beyond that.