It's #nationalwildlifedaytoday. Designed to improve awareness of the world's diverse species and the troubles they now face.
I'm championing the European Hedgehog, here in the UK it's on our Biodiversity Action Plan, a list of species that are in decline in the UK. Hedgehogs need our help! . The People's Trust for Endangered Species in the UK work towards helping ensure we don't lose these species (@ptes)
We have hedgehogs regularly visit our garden, and have seen them many times over the years. However it wasn't until we needed some help with a blind hedgehog we found out in the daytime, that I realised how little help there is out there for hedgehogs.
Most of the help they receive comes from wonderful/selfless volunteers across the country, who open their homes to care for sick and injured hedgehogs.
However there are lots of things we can do to help them be happy in our gardens, and keep sickness and injury to a minimum.
The Hedgehog Preservation Society has lots of information on how you can help and encourage your local hedgehogs into your garden.
They also run a campaign called Hedgehog Street, where you can log any sightings of hedgehogs in your area. You can also become a hedgehog champion in your street and promote the creation of hedgehog highways ( a hole in a fence to help hedgehogs navigate through gardens without having to use the roads).
I intend to pop some leaflets into the doors of my neighbours to encourage them to look after our hedgehogs, we are lucky to have a good population in the area I live. We're also helping by being a release site for some of the local rescued hedgehogs that need a safer place to live out their days. It was a privilege to release little V.P. into the garden recently, and to have the chance to sketch him before he went on his way. Have you seen a hedgehog in your garden recently?
