Urban Hedgehog Welfare: Gardens, Roads and Survival

Hedgehog populations in Britain have declined by over a third since 2000. Urban hedgehogs face threats from roads, garden hazards and habitat loss, but gardens can become vital refuges with simple modifications.

Key Facts

UK hedgehog populations have fallen from approximately 1.5 million in the 1990s to under 900,000 today
Roads are the single largest cause of hedgehog mortality - an estimated 100,000 are killed on UK roads annually
Garden hazards including ponds, netting, strimmers and slug pellets kill tens of thousands of hedgehogs each year
Hedgehogs travel up to 2km per night foraging - garden fencing that prevents movement is a major barrier
Hedgehog highways (13cm holes in garden fences) and connected wildlife corridors are proven to increase survival

Welfare Considerations

Hedgehogs are suffering at the intersection of multiple human-caused pressures: habitat loss, pesticide reduction of invertebrate prey, road deaths and garden hazards. Each of these deaths and injuries involves real suffering - drowning in ponds, entanglement in netting, poisoning from slug pellets, trauma from strimmers. The good news is that individual actions to make gardens hedgehog-friendly have documented population benefits. Cities with active hedgehog corridor programmes show slower declines. This is a rare conservation case where household-level action genuinely matters.

What You Can Do

Create a hedgehog highway by cutting a 13cm hole in garden fences
Cover ponds with ramps so hedgehogs can escape if they fall in
Remove or raise garden netting at night when hedgehogs are active
Switch from metaldehyde or ferric phosphate slug pellets to physical barriers or beer traps
Register your garden with the British Hedgehog Preservation Society's Big Hedgehog Map