Creating Wildlife Corridors in Urban Gardens

Connecting urban gardens through hedgehog highways and wildlife-friendly design creates functional corridors for wildlife movement.

Key Facts

The average UK garden is 190 square metres — collectively, they exceed all nature reserves combined
Garden fences have increased in number and height significantly since 1950, fragmenting urban wildlife
Hedgehog highways (13x13cm holes in fences) have been installed in over 300,000 gardens
Connected garden networks allow hedgehogs, slow worms, frogs, and insects to move and breed freely
Urban garden wildlife diversity is significantly higher in connected versus isolated garden networks

Welfare Considerations

Garden connectivity is a welfare intervention that works at population scale. Individual animals trapped in isolated garden plots cannot access the territory size needed for feeding, breeding, or genetic diversity. Hedgehogs require 1-2km of nightly movement; cats, urban foxes, and hedgehogs in isolated gardens face food stress, mate-finding difficulty, and inbreeding. Creating linked corridors through simple fence modifications transforms a collection of isolated habitats into a functional wildlife network.

What You Can Do

Install a hedgehog highway hole in your garden fence and encourage neighbours to do the same
Register your garden at hedgehoglogs.org.uk to contribute to wildlife corridor mapping
Remove or raise wooden decking edges to allow wildlife movement underneath
Create bat and bird corridors by linking tree canopies with climbing plants
Advocate for wildlife corridor requirements in new housing development planning conditions