European hedgehog populations have declined dramatically due to habitat loss, road mortality and garden hazards, making garden wildlife welfare increasingly important for this species.
Hedgehog welfare in human-dominated landscapes depends on the cumulative management choices of millions of individual garden owners. Road mortality is a major welfare event — hedgehogs hit by vehicles suffer injuries including spinal damage and internal trauma. Garden hazards from strimmers, bonfires and garden netting cause preventable individual welfare harm. Pesticide use reduces prey availability and causes direct toxicity through accumulation in earthworms and beetles that hedgehogs eat. The connectivity of hedgehog habitat through fence gaps enabling movement between gardens significantly affects the ability of individuals to meet their foraging and social needs. Individual household changes multiplied across millions of gardens create meaningful population-level welfare improvements.