Hedgehog Highway Projects: Urban Connectivity

Hedgehog Highway projects create connectivity between gardens in urban neighborhoods, directly improving individual hedgehog welfare through access to larger foraging territories.

Key Facts

A single urban hedgehog may travel 2-3km per night in search of food — fragmented gardens severely restrict this
A 13cm square gap at the base of garden fences allows hedgehog passage while excluding most other wildlife
Neighborhood-level coordination of gap installation creates connectivity networks worth orders of magnitude more than isolated gaps
The Hedgehog Street project has registered over 100,000 hedgehog-friendly gardens across the UK
Urban hedgehog populations are declining more slowly than rural ones, partly due to urban connectivity initiatives
Gardens typically represent 25-30% of urban land area — making them hedgehog-friendly has landscape-scale impact

Welfare Considerations

Hedgehog highway projects convert isolated garden fragments into connected habitat networks that directly improve individual hedgehog welfare. A hedgehog restricted to a single enclosed garden cannot access the diverse foraging opportunities needed to achieve pre-hibernation weight. Connected gardens allow access to larger, more varied food resources that support both summer survival and winter hibernation success. The cumulative welfare benefit of neighborhood-scale connectivity projects is the difference between populations of hedgehogs thriving versus slowly declining in urban areas.

What You Can Do

Create a 13cm gap at the base of all solid garden fences — this is the most important single action for urban hedgehog welfare
Talk to your neighbors about creating complementary gaps to establish connectivity across multiple gardens
Register your garden as hedgehog-friendly on the Hedgehog Street website to contribute to monitoring data
Share the Hedgehog Street project with your local community group, school, or neighborhood association
Avoid using slug pellets that can kill hedgehogs directly or deplete their invertebrate prey base
Create habitat features including log piles, compost heaps, and dense shrubs to support hedgehogs within your garden