UK hedgehog populations have declined by over 50% since 2000, with garden habitat loss and fragmentation among the primary causes. Garden management changes can make significant positive impacts for individual and population welfare.
Garden hedgehog welfare sits at the intersection of individual animal care and population conservation, where actions that support individual hedgehogs also contribute to the survival of a nationally declining species. The hedgehog welfare needs that gardens can address are specific and well-understood. Connectivity is the most fundamental: hedgehogs require large foraging territories and cannot sustain populations in isolated garden fragments separated by impenetrable fencing. The hedgehog highway — 13cm holes at fence bases — costs nothing and enables movement between connected garden habitats that supports the foraging and social interactions hedgehogs need. Hazard removal is the second priority: clearing bonfire material before lighting, checking long grass before strimming, providing pond exit ramps, and using hedgehog-safe alternatives to toxic slug controls each prevent specific documented causes of hedgehog injury and death. Supplementary feeding through purpose-designed hedgehog houses with entrance tunnels that exclude cats and foxes supports individual hedgehog welfare during resource-scarce periods, particularly autumn when hedgehogs must accumulate sufficient fat reserves for hibernation.