The Hedgehog's Dilemma

by Hugh Warwick

  There is a lovely story I have seen in three places so far, though in each case the details are slightly different and it seems to be taking on the qualities of an urban myth. A man, in one instance a carpetfitter from Doncaster, of large and rather scary proportions, hid a deep love for wildlife, and hedgehogs in particular, behind a maze of tattoos. There was a particular patch of road where he noticed hedgehogs getting squashed on a regular basis. So much so that he believed there must be some deliberate targeting going on. He formulated a plan; the hedgehog’s revenge. He collected a recently deceased individual, took it home and carefully gutted it on the kitchen table. He then put a brick inside the skin and returned it to the road, where he placed it and waited for the inevitable collision.

  I read a version of this in one of the Bogor cartoons from New Zealand’s Listener magazine, I read it in a small English regional newspaper and I read it in the Sunday Times. In this last outing, the story began, ‘This story must be true as I heard it on Radio 4.’ But what this columnist had not noticed was that it was a humorous programme called ‘Foot Off the Pedal ’ and it was me who was spinning wild tales.

  Would hedgehogs fare any better if their defensive strategy evolved into something more active? This is a moot point. Given the speed at which hedgehogs move, perhaps staying still is not such a bad option. Obviously staying still in the path of a wheel is bad, but given that more of the car is not wheel, the chance is that the hedgehog would not be in the line of the tyre. But if they move, there is the risk that they move from safety into the path of the wheel.

  People notice hedgehogs, and they notice the absence of hedgehogs too. I have given hundreds of talks about hedgehogs and one of the most repeated comments is that ‘there just don’t seem to be as many hedgehogs as there used to be’. Now, most of my audiences tend to be of retirement age, often Women’s Institute (I have started to demand part-payment in cake), and I did wonder whether this was a romantic memory, like people being politer and food being tastier back in the old days.

  But there was a consistency with the anecdotes that began to give them credibility. Everywhere the story seemed to be the same. While writing this book, when people have asked what I am doing they nearly always tell stories of seeing fewer hedgehogs. I have not met a single person who has told me that they are seeing more hedgehogs now than in the past.

  The data from Pat and the Mammals Trust began to add some very disturbing meat to the bones of the story. Hedgehog numbers appeared to be in the sort of free-fall that, if found in birds, would result in questions being asked in Parliament. But a lowly mammal, however popular, has to struggle in the face of the avian conspiracy.

  The Mammals on Roads survey revealed that between 2001 and 2005 there was a national decline in hedgehogs of 20 per cent. For some regions, including East Anglia, over a slightly longer period, the decline reached 50 per cent. This caused the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and the People’s Trust for Endangered Species to take notice. The figures were serious and what was more worrying was that we did not know the cause. To try to find out we raised money to fund a PhD student to look at the many factors affecting hedgehog survival. During this time we all got involved in one project, Hogfiatch. This was the first survey of its kind and it relied upon the hedgehog’s most important characteristic – its appeal. The aim of Hogfiatch was to get enough data to produce a map of where hedgehogs had been seen in the UK and, more importantly, where they had not. And to do this we needed people, lots of people, to tell us what they knew.

  There is a view that science is done by other people, in lab coats. But there are times when nothing can compete with the amateur. While we managed to get many responses via the membership of our organizations, it was the media that really helped propel the story into the public arena. I did countless radio and television interviews, newspapers picked up the story and we were inundated with gorgeous information. Thanks to the 20,000 people who responded, we could start to produce a nationwide map in 2007.

  What a story this map told. There was a clear east–west split in areas where hedgehogs were most likely to be seen. Now, I had always felt, based on nothing other than prejudice, that the west was the natural home of the hedgehog. The moister land, the smaller fields and the cows all struck me as perfect. But the dominant side for hedgehogs is the east.

  While this was a surprise, it was also worrying, as it is the east of the country where the decline in hedgehog numbers has been the greatest. Had a decline already occurred in the west? What were the factors that made the apparently suitable land so hostile to the hogs? We are beginning to understand more about what is happening, but these questions are all part of the ongoing survey.

  First, a word about badgers. At the BHPS we regularly receive letters from farmers asking us to join them in taking up arms against the evil Brock. As badgers eat hedgehogs they assume that we will want to join with them in wiping the Wends off the face of earth. And our results from Hogfiatch do reveal an apparent correlation between the increase in badgers and the decrease in hedgehogs. Perhaps we should be calling for the end of the badger . . . or perhaps we should be looking a little more closely at what is going on.

  Farmers want to rid the countryside of badgers because badgers are blamed for transmitting bovine TB to cattle. But there is another reason why the farming community wants to see the back of the badger. In the press this is phrased as an effort to increase the breeding success of ground-nesting birds, the eggs of which are stolen by greedy badgers.

  But how altruistic is this stance? Not as much as it might at first appear. The birds that the farming union is most keen to preserve are not the skylark or the lapwing, but the game birds, such as pheasant and partridge, the eggs of which will occasionally fall into the mouths of passing badgers. And I find it hard to get exercised about game birds that thrive at the whim of the hunting industry.

  Are badgers responsible for the vanishing hogs? This is tricky. And I am not entirely impartial, having witnessed my Little Willy being devoured by a ravening beast from hell.

  We know that, locally, badgers can have quite an impact. Not just from what I observed, but also from researchers at Oxford University. So clear were the results from a study they did on releasing hedgehogs into the badger-rich environment around Wytham Woods in Oxfordshire, published in 1992, that I heard more than one biologist refer to their efforts as badger-feeding experiments. Though another scientist at the university has told me that the story of Wytham’s hedgehogs is more complicated than just badgers. The locals tell of Gypsies, not badgers, eradicating hedgehogs from the wood.

  Wytham Woods is the most studied woodland in the country. I have spent many happy, sleepless nights surveying small mammals around the margins. Badgers and deer frequent the glades, and the bluebells – each year I try to get up to the woods to walk through the haze of blue.

  So do badgers control hedgehogs? And if so, perhaps some should be released on to the Uists to help SNH with their tricky problem (that way lies madness – the madness that resulted in the cane toad exterminating all in its path in Australia after it was deliberately released in 1935 to control the cane beetle).

  At first glance it would seem that the farmers have got a point. Under the Protection of Badgers Act (1992), it is illegal to interfere with badgers and their setts, overturning generations of persecution – both in the form of (perceived) vermin control and for the ‘sport’ of badger baiting. Since then badger numbers appear to have increased.

  Has that corresponded with a decline in hedgehogs? We do not know. There seem to be fewer hedgehogs where there are more badgers. But this does not necessarily mean there is what is known as a causal relationship. It is possible that changes in the landscape and farming practice are creating a situation where the hedgehog and the badger are forced together in smaller pockets of suitable habitat.

  Frustratingly there seems to be evidence of a solution that would meet everybody’s needs. Research has shown that smaller field
s with richer hedges contain cattle that suffer less from TB, despite the presence of badgers. These are also habitats that would benefit hedgehogs. But the way things are going, it doesn’t seem likely that numbers of smaller fields will ever increase.

  One of the answers we have is that there is a clear correlation between increased field size and reduced hedgehog numbers. This is all part of ‘habitat fragmentation’. Hedgehog heaven involves hedges. Obvious really. Now hedges are no longer allowed to be ripped up for fun, or grant payments, as they once were. They can only be destroyed through the planning system, which should not fill any hedge lover with confidence. And there is another problem out there – the diggers might have stopped grubbing out hundreds of years of ecological heritage in the quest for a fraction more farmland, but the skilled workers who knew how to manage a hedge have been grubbed out too. One of the sorriest sights from a train window, as I barrel along through the countryside, is the vision of a line of trees separated by a few bits of scrub and held together by wire fencing. This is a dead hedge. Hedges die if they don’t get laid (I am sure there is a joke in there somewhere).

  The loss of hedges is important. Hedgehogs spend 60 per cent of their time within 5 metres of a hedge or woodland edge and 80 per cent of hedgehog nests are found within them. Hedges are the highways and byways of the countryside, used by many species, but particularly by hedgehogs – they hog the hedges – and even more particularly by nursing mothers, whose young will be hidden in a hedge, and who will not want to travel far from the safety the hedge promises.

  Their demise reduces the hedgehog’s ability to traverse the land. This prevents replenishment of hedgehog populations that get wiped out by badgers, disease or cars. Birds, bats and insects transcend these barriers, but hedgehogs are blocked. It is a shame that many of the measures of the value of bio-diversity are based on birds, bats and insects. If mammals such as the hedgehog were the measure of a land’s fitness, perhaps more would be done to prevent its degradation.

  Another problem faced by rural hedgehogs is ‘improved pasture’. Superficially this is the sort of habitat that you might imagine any self-respecting hedgehog would adore: lush grass suggestive of an invertebrate feast just waiting to be snaffled up by an inquisitive snout. But this verdant landscape is not quite what it seems.

  The issue is in the ‘improved’ bit. Traditional pasture is maintained with few external inputs. Fertilizer comes from the cows that crop the rich grass and the many intermingled herbs add great diversity to the ecosystem. How could this be improved? Well, it all depends on what you are measuring. If it is a very basic measure of amount of milk per hectare, then the use of agrochemicals and single grass varieties will help. If the measure is of a diverse and sustainable ecosystem, then it will not.

  It seems likely that the problem hedgehogs face in an ‘improved’ habitat is that there is less diversity, so fewer bugs to eat. Strange that the landscape farmers are claiming to be defending for us is less attractive to wildlife than the amenity grasslands provided by local councils. As it is to suburbia that the hedgehogs appear to have flocked, for now at least.

  The fate of the UK’s hedgehogs is not clear, but it seems that we have good reason to worry. It is a testament to the power of Beatrix Potter, perhaps, that we do worry, as hedgehogs have not always been the loved creatures they are now.

  Not everyone loves Mrs T

  Reading this book, you might have got the impression that our relationship with hedgehogs is a real-life rom-com of mismatched cuteness, tragedy, misunderstanding, slapstick and underlying love. It has not always been thus.

  Over the centuries there has been a systematic assault on our dearly beloved friend. The conservationist and author Roger Lovegrove has researched this assault, in the years following his retirement from the RSPB. He took himself into the dark corners of early bureaucracy, spending an age rummaging through 450 years’ worth of parish records that reported the extermination of ‘vermin’. It was all recorded, as payment was made on presentation of proof of extermination. His results were published in 2007 in Silent Fields: The Long Decline of a Nation’s Wildlife, which for the first time revealed the remarkable scale of the slaughter.

  Vermin – we all know what vermin are, things like rats. But hedgehogs? How did they get to be verminous? How could our cute, adorable Mrs Tiggy-Winkle warrant a bounty? Because that is what happened. This was not just a random assault on animals over a few centuries, but a concerted effort, rewarded by payment.

  The official start of the campaign began with Queen Elizabeth I passing the Vermin Act in 1566. There were some staggering ‘bags’. The Cheshire parish of Bunbury records that 8,585 hedgehogs were killed in thirty-five years in the late seventeenth century.

  Why the hostility? The accepted reasons were that hedgehogs were egg thieves and that they stole milk from cows. The egg-eating has undoubtedly got an element of truth in it, but suckling cows? I fear that this must be in the same category as the fruit-carrying myth. But likewise, repetition has given it credibility. There are many stories in the archives of folklore that tell of people who have definitely seen it happening with their own two eyes.

  The problems are obvious: a hedgehog’s mouth is too small and its teeth too sharp. There is, however, a logical explanation for the source of the story. Early morning, cows lying around, chewing the cud and gossiping. Sometimes there will be a little seepage from the teats. Now, we know that hedgehogs like milk, so a little inquisitive snuffling may well lead a hungry hog to a few drips, which would be consumed with delight, I am sure. But then along comes the herdsman or milkmaid or whoever did that sort of early-morning job and what do they see? A hedgehog with milky chops and a cow with a little puddle of spilt juice. What would you think? And then if the yields were down, there was the explanation.

  When things go wrong, as they did a lot for sixteenth-century rural communities of England, thanks to disease, poor weather and worse harvests, there is a need to find a ‘scapehog’. People couldn’t beat up the weather, so they turned to wildlife. It may well have been a simple case of ignorance about hedgehogs – with people really believing that they were having an impact on the food supplies – but I also wonder whether this was all part of a tacit social security system for some of the most vulnerable in the community. Could it be that the authorities were well aware that hedgehogs were not vermin, but that by labelling a very easily caught animal as such, this was a way of giving money to the needy for performing a socially useless function in the guise of a socially useful function?

  The fact that parishes were paying twice as much for a hedgehog as they were for a stoat or weasel suggests that this was not a scale based on potential damage to productivity.

  There was the added advantage that, as only the head needed to be presented, the rest of the body could be eaten, so killing hedgehogs was definitely a win-win situation (though not for the hedgehog).

  Lovegrove extrapolates from the data he was able to collect to provide an idea of the national scale of the destruction levelled on the innocent urchins. He estimates that in the ten counties he has most data for around half a million hedgehogs were killed between 1660 and 1800.

  Very roughly, that would correspond to a nationwide cull of 2 million over 140 years – so about 14,000 per year. That sounds awful. But consider the present day. While there may be a few gamekeepers and conservationists flying in the face of mainstream opinion by actively killing hedgehogs, Pat Morris has estimated 15,000 are killed each year on the roads. So I do not think we can judge our ancestors too harshly.

  Given this slaughter, what can we do to help?

  A Hedgehog-friendly Garden

  I am always asked how to improve the lot of the hedgehog – usually straight after being asked about sex and fleas. I love the question, as it gives me a chance to go on about how we can all make a difference – how even the smallest patch of garden can be improved for wildlife and how a great interconnectedness between all things is revealed by t
his. And sometimes I just use the short answer: do less gardening. The tidier the garden, the more likely it is that slugs will feast inappropriately. Removing those enticing heaps of decaying leaves will leave your strawberries as fair game. Interfere less and nature’s order will take care of both your hedgehogs and your strawberries.

  If we want to actively improve our patch for hedgehogs, we need to make it a little more like what a hedgehog would enjoy. Remember the ‘hedge’ in the name. Think about the qualities a good old hedge possesses and see how best to replicate them in your garden.

  Consider how wonderful hedgehogs are for the garden. Known as the gardener’s friend by many, the hedgehog is well versed at getting rid of several of the most irritating invertebrates – those slugs and snails that can break a gardener’s heart. In fact, so good are they that I have met two people who have discussed the idea of harnessing this passion and offering it as a service. One was quite serious about trying to set up a hedgehog farm from where he would supply hedgehogs to gardens and allotments (the last I heard of him was that he had been sectioned somewhere in Africa). The other idea was more in jest, I think. Someone suggested establishing a hedgehog SWAT team (Special Weapons and Tactics becoming Spiny Weapons against Torment, or possibly, if they came from Yorkshire, Spiny Weapons against t’molluscs). Colonies of hedgehogs could be called in to deal with problem gardens and allotments. A hedgehog-proof barrier would be erected and the highly trained and incentivized (i.e. hungry) operatives would be let loose on the verminous invertebrates. I sense more reality TV on the horizon.