Kyra and Sophie from Hedgehog Friendly Town

Rehabilatation centers

We each set up rehabiliation centres and between us have helped nearly 400 hedgehogs.

We have learnt how to analyse their poo and with Vets help work out the correct medications to give them along with the symptoms and treatments of lots of other ailments.

Raising awareness

We started by writing some letters and encouraging local homes to put hedgehog highways into their garden boundaries.

Now we have been lucky enough to have delivered over 50 workshops/talks to a range of both adults and children, making them fun, including games, songs, interactive stories, and craft activities

We have attended over 15 open days/ fairs. Taking along games, challenges and crafts.

We document our work on social media to help raise awareness to as many people as possible all under Hedgehog Friendly Town.

Rubbish

From seeing how many come in with injuries caused by rubbish we joined a local rubbish picking group and have been out on over 15 picks. We have teamed up with “rubbish friends” and often go on talks together.  It works well to show the bigger impact dropping litter has.

Netting on hedges and housing development companies

We made a video to raise awareness of how netting could be trapping hedgehogs and other ground dwelling animals. We arranged meeting with Taylor Wimpy Developments to find a solution.  They listened to us and agreed to put our ideas in place.  They are fitting tunnels in the netting to allow animals to escape and will be adding hedgehog friendly features into their housing development.

Strimmer’s/Trimmers

After having Hedgehogs come into our centres with terrible injuries caused by these machines we wanted to try and raise awareness. We set up a display in our local hardware store next to the machines with info on how they can check first and who to call if they find a hedgehog that needs help.  This was then shared and other stores followed suit.

Ramps

Hedgehogs can swim very well but can’t get out of ponds or pools with steep sides.  We met up with the local park ranger that told us that last year he had fished out 1 or 2 hedgehogs from the pool each week throughout the summer.  We arranged for a ramp to be made to fit the pool and the Ranger puts it in and out every day.   Since then there have been no casualities.

Education

After caring for 4 hoglets rescued from a local school we realised the impact of getting the whole school involved. With children learning how they can make small changes that really make a huge difference.

we have written a set of challenges designed for schools to complete with their students. They are written in a way so any age can complete them and so far are proving popular.

Cygnets pre school have already taken them on, along with The Willows Primary School.  Both of our secondary schools are obviously taking part.

Our Schools

We have started to get our schools to complete the hedgehog mission we wrote. So far both schools have completed 2 of the challenges.  Looking at habitat and completing a rubbish pick in the area.  We are looking forward to completing the rest and getting more children involved.

Involving Others

Many children, adults and families have got involved either by bringing us poorly hedgehogs, helping raise  money for food or fostering hedgehogs for us. This winter we have had over 30 hedgehogs out with foster carers.  This frees up cages so we can help more that are in need of more intensive care.  Having to care for a wild animal to prepare it for release helps especially children learn to love and respect our wildlife and environment.

Our future

We love to rehabilitate and every year our hogspitals get busier and busier.  Knowing we are saving a life is the most unbelievable feeling and when you watch a hedgehog be released back to the wild it makes all the hard work worth it.  We are hoping to learn more and more from our vets and mentors.

We have also started to collate information about the hedgehogs that come into our care.  This we are sharing with others to help get a better understanding of how we can help hedgehogs in the future.

We are looking forward to working with housing developers to improve the way they work with our environment.

Hopefully, if more schools get involved in the challenges, then change will come for the better for all our wildlife.