Urban Hedgehog Conservation and Road Mortality

How urban hedgehogs are threatened by road traffic, garden fencing, and pesticide use, and practical actions that help maintain urban hedgehog populations.

Key Facts

Hedgehog populations in the UK have declined by approximately 50% since the 1990s in rural areas and by less in urban areas
Road traffic is a leading cause of hedgehog mortality — approximately 100,000 UK hedgehogs are killed on roads annually
Solid garden fencing prevents hedgehog movement between gardens, fragmenting urban habitat
Slug pellets containing metaldehyde and some other pesticides are toxic to hedgehogs
Hedgehog highways — 13cm holes in garden fencing — allow movement between gardens and dramatically increase territory size

Welfare Considerations

Urban hedgehogs face welfare harms that are largely human-caused and largely preventable. Road mortality causes acute death or injury. Garden fencing that prevents movement forces hedgehogs into smaller territories with less food and more inbreeding. Pesticide exposure causes disorientation, paralysis, and slow death. The welfare-positive interventions are practical and cheap: hedgehog highways in fencing, removing slug pellets, leaving areas of garden unmown, and creating log piles and compost heaps for nesting and foraging. Urban hedgehog conservation is an area where individual household actions aggregate to meaningful population-level welfare improvement.

What You Can Do

Cut a 13cm square hole in garden fencing to create a hedgehog highway between gardens
Remove slug pellets and other hedgehog-toxic pesticides from your garden entirely
Leave areas of garden with leaf litter, log piles, or compost heaps that provide hedgehog nesting and foraging habitat
Drive slowly in hedgehog-active areas at night, particularly during autumn when hedgehogs are preparing for hibernation
Report hedgehog sightings to national recording schemes that track urban population trends