UK hedgehog populations have declined by over 50% since 2000. Garden habitats are increasingly important refuges, and individual garden management decisions meaningfully affect local hedgehog populations.
Individual hedgehogs in fragmented garden landscapes face foraging ranges too small to sustain their caloric needs, particularly during breeding season when females need additional energy for lactation. The cumulative effect of fence fragmentation across millions of gardens creates a landscape of isolated patches that cannot support viable populations. Hedgehogs that cannot find sufficient food before hibernation enter winter in poor body condition and may not survive. Garden-level interventions — hedgehog highways, supplementary feeding, pesticide reduction, and compost heap checks before disturbing — represent meaningful individual welfare actions that aggregate to population-level conservation outcomes.