Hedgehog Awareness Week, organised by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, starts on Sunday (May 5) aimed at highlighting the problems hedgehogs face and how you can help them.
This year efforts are focussed on gardeners – there is so much that gardeners can do to help the hedgehog, very simple things like:
Ensuring there is access into the garden — all that is needed is a five inch square gap – checking areas before strimming or mowing, moving piles of rubbish to a new site before burning it and ensuring netting is kept at a safe height.
You also need to check compost heaps before digging the fork in, stop or reduce the amount of pesticides and poisons used, covering drains or deep holes, and ensuring that there is an easy route out of ponds and pools.
“There is so much the gardener can do to help hedgehogs, and with hedgehog numbers in decline it is more important now than ever,” says BHPS chief executive Fay Vass. “We have produced a poster highlighting dangers hedgehogs face in our gardens to mark this Hedgehog Awareness Week.”
For a free copy of the poster or for membership details send an A5 sae to BHPS, Garden Dangers, Hedgehog House, Dhustone, Ludlow, SY8 3PL or see www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk.
Councillor shocked by intervention of council’s solicitor in her Tory leaflets complaint
