The Western European hedgehog — the prickly, nocturnal critter people love to encounter in the garden — is in decline, mowed down by cars as its shrinking habitat forces it to move ever closer to humans.
An updated Red List of Threatened Species published on Monday at the UN Biodiversity Conference of the Parties in Cali, Colombia, downgraded the hedgehog’s status from “least concern” to “near threatened.”
The next level on the list kept by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, is “vulnerable,” then “endangered.”
Photo: Reuters
The European hedgehog “is very close to being ‘vulnerable,’ and it will likely go into that category the next time we evaluate it,” expert Sophie Rasmussen said.
Numbers of the tiny mammal have plunged by more than half its host countries including Britain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria.
The estimated decline was 35 to 40 percent of populations measured in Britain, Sweden and Norway in the last decade or so, said Rasmussen, a researcher with the University of Oxford’s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit.
In the Netherlands, it is already considered endangered.
The main killer of hedgehogs is cars -- which the animals encounter increasingly more, as they lose their natural habitat to human expansion.
“Humans are the worst enemies of hedgehogs,” Rasmussen said.
To protect itself from predators such as badgers, foxes and owls at night, the hedgehog uses the strategy of standing completely still as it assesses the threat.
If the menace approaches, it runs as far as its little legs can carry it.
However, if there is no time, it rolls up into a ball — protected by as many as 8,000 spines, sharp to the touch.
“In front of a car, it is not a really good strategy,” said Rasmussen, who calls herself Dr Hedgehog.
Other threats include pesticides used by farmers and gardeners, and a decline in the insects that make up a large part of the hedgehog’s diet.
Hedgehogs generally live for about two years, though some as old as nine or 12 have been documented.
They can start breeding from about 12 months of age, usually giving birth to three or five hoglets at a time.
“This means that many hedgehogs get to breed once, or twice perhaps if they’re lucky, on average before they die,” said Rasmussen, adding that it is just enough “to keep the population going at some level.”
Soon, this might not be enough.
Rasmussen, whose research went into the Red List update, said the fight to save hedgehogs “is actually going to take place in people’s gardens,” as forests and other wild areas are torn down.
She suggested people build “hedgehog highways” — basically a CD-sized hole in the outer fence to allow the animals to get in off the road, with bowls of water and nesting materials such as garden waste placed inside.
“The best thing you can do is to let your garden grow wild to attract ... all the natural food items of the hedgehog” such as insects, worms, snails and slugs,” Rasmussen said.
She concedes “it’s not like the world is going to end tomorrow if the hedgehogs are not there.”
However, “for a species so popular and so loved, can we really accept the fact that we are causing their extinction?” she asked. “And if we let it get so bad with a species we actually really care about, what about all the species we don’t care about?”
The new, updated Red List has evaluated 166,061 species of plants and animals in all, of which 46,337 — more than a quarter — are threatened with extinction.
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