Road mortality is a major driver of hedgehog population decline, and targeted infrastructure interventions can dramatically reduce individual deaths at known hotspot locations.
Road mortality causes traumatic death and injury to hundreds of thousands of individual hedgehogs annually in the UK alone. Animals struck but not killed suffer severe trauma before dying in verges or hedgerows. The scale of road mortality is a major contributor to population decline alongside habitat loss. Infrastructure solutions that allow safe crossing without road surface exposure directly prevent individual deaths. The installation of hedgehog-sized culverts at identified hotspots, combined with appropriate fencing directing animals to safe crossing points, is a proven welfare intervention scalable from individual roads to national infrastructure policy.