Saving Snuffles

There was an answerphone message to say that the hedgehog I had rescued just after Christmas (see earlier post) was due for release. He had apparently acquired a new name - Snuffles - and a lot of weight. Curious to see how the hedgehog was doing and keen to release him close to the place he was found, I took a shoe box to collect him from the Help a Hedgehog Hospital. Annie, who had cared for him for the previous three months, led me through the garden to a rabbit hutch that had been his temporary home. Snuffles, having feasted for three months, had grown to about 800g, more than twice the size that he had been when we found him, wandering around in the snow. Annie lifted him from his bed of hay and we both eyed my shoe box uncertainly, wondering whether Snuffles was in fact, too fat to fit. Snuffles, too, looked unimpressed, unfurling his football-sized body just long enough to fix his beady, blue-black eyes on us, before rolling back into a ball. I took him, squeezed rather unceremoniously into the box, back to my parent's garden, where a hedgehog house was ready for his arrival. It was wedged under a branch, so that it could not be flipped over by badgers, which would eagerly tuck into a tasty hedgehog, given half a chance. We stuffed some of Snuffle's hay into the box, to provide a familiar scent and then, I lifted the lid to let Snuffles, chuntering and grunting away to himself, slowly make his way through the narrow entrance to the safety of the hedgehog house.

That evening, as dusk fell, I staked out the hedgehog house, hoping to see Snuffles emerge and feed on the plate of dogfood that I had put out for him. I stood in the drizzle, watching a bat, the first I had seen this year, doing laps around the beech tree. I gave it an hour, but I had to get home, so I left, disappointed, without seeing Snuffles take his first steps back into the wild. There is evidence to suggest that hedgehogs kept in captivity for at least a month survive well when released, so Snuffles has every chance of living a normal, healthy life. Maybe I will catch a glimpse of him again one day, foraging in the garden. Perhaps he will bring back a mate and the garden will be filled with hoglets. But, then again, he might just disappear, to live his life out of human view, back where he belongs.

Now you do it

To make your garden hedgehog friendly:

• never use pesticides - slug pellets and other pesticides are dangerous to hedgehogs.
• create a garden with high biodiversity. This means having a range of different habitats and micro-habitats such as hedgerows, ponds, compost heaps, leaf litter and log piles, and a variety of different plants to attact the invertebrates that hedgehogs eat.
  
• provide additional food, such as tinned or dried dog or cat food, mealworms or chicken.
• ensure that hedgehogs are not fenced in or out of your garden. They need to roam over large areas, so leave gaps in boundary fencing to allow them to travel.
  
• make sure that swimming pools and ponds do not become hedgehog death traps and that there is always a way out, such as a ramp, should a hedgehog fall in.
• Be careful that any netting used in the garden can not trap a hedgehog.
  
• check for hedgehogs before strimming, mowing, lighting a bonfire etc.
  
• provide either a purpose-built hedgehog house or make your own.

Giving Hedgehogs a Helping Hand

You would be forgiven for thinking that I had gone into hibernation with my lack of recent blogging activity. But, I haven't, just as the little hedgehog that I found scurrying about in the open air this morning hadn't.

A hedgehog was really the last thing that I was expecting to see a few days after Christmas in the middle of the day and I had to take a closer look before I could quite believe my eyes. I crept up to it, as it snuffled for food over a small triangle of grass. Then, as though suddenly sensing my presence towering above it, it froze and fixed me with a sparkly, black eye. Its long nose twitched, as though it suspected that I was up to something. As I reached down to pick it up, it slowly rolled itself into a ball. I held the spiny bundle gently in my gloved hands and it felt as light as a feather. Knowing that hedgehogs should be tucked up asleep during December days and that there was obviously something wrong with this one, I took it home. Carrying it at arm’s length, I scanned it for the fleas that I was sure it would be crawling with, but could see none. Once home, I placed it in a cardboard box with a towel, a jam jar lid of water and a spoon of dog food, then left it alone in a quiet room. I peered inside a few minutes later to find that it had unfurled and stuck its head into the folds of the towel, leaving just a spiny rump and the tip of a black tail on show.

To give my hedgehog the best chance of survival, I did a quick internet search and found my nearest hedgehog hospital, just a few miles down the road. At the Help the Hedgehog Hospital I was greeted by the founder, Annie Parfitt, who has devoted herself to caring for injured, sick and orphaned hogs. She was currently caring for eleven other hedgehogs, in a variety of sheds, cages and rabbit hutches throughout her house and garden. She took one look at my hedgehog and told me that it was a juvenile from a second brood this autumn. Weighing it in her hands, she estimated that it was about 300g – nowhere near the 600g that it should be if it was to survive the winter in the wild. She told me that climate change was leading to fewer second brood hedgehogs surviving the winter. She placed my hedgehog in a cage and within minutes, it was munching its way through a dish full of meal worms. This hedgehog was the lucky one. Its litter mates, on the other hand, would not make it through the winter in the wild without help. My little hedgehog though, had a good chance of survival. There were no signs of lungworm or other illnesses. It was simply a case of feeding it up and releasing it in the spring, close to where it was found and perhaps with a mate. I left the hedgehog hospital feeling happy. For a declining species like the hedgehog, every individual that can be saved and released to breed is a success story.

Now you do it
Keep your eyes peeled for hedgehogs out and about during the day through the winter. If you find any, their best chance of survival is being looked after by somebody who knows what they are doing. Put the hedgehog in a box with a warm hot water bottle wrapped in a towel, then when it has warmed up (after about an hour), provide it with some water in a saucer and dog or cat food. Then get it to a hedgehog carer as soon as possible - To find your nearest check out The British Hedgehog Preservation Society website.

Conservation Status
The hedgehog has recently been added to the UK BAP as a Priority Species. There are an estimated 1,555,000 hedgehogs in the UK, although this is thought to be decreasing in parts of England and Wales. Possible reasons for a drop in numbers are agricultural intensification, loss of habitat, an increase in the number of badgers, more road traffic, drier summers and changing gardening practices. Climate change has also been highlighted as a potential factor in the decline. Hedgehogs do not need to hibernate and do well in warmer climates, but unpredictable weather is a problem. Mild, wet weather during winter may cause hedgehogs to arouse from hibernation, potentially at a time when there is not enough food to sustain them. For more information on hedgehogs, check out Wildlife Online