Help the Hedgehogs
Hedgehogs eat slugs and snails, but are becoming very scarce.
The Environment Trust would like to know if you’ve seen one in Richmond Borough recently. If you have any hedgehogs in your garden or allotment send in your photos / sightings:
- Contact: naturesgym@glendale-services.co.uk
- Conservation Officer: 07825860459
Hedgehog tips
- Hedgehogs forage at night; they eat snails, slugs, insects and worms (slow worms also eat slugs and snails). Milk makes hedgehogs sick (just like bread bloats birds).
- Obstacles for hedgehogs are chemicals, disturbance, machinery, roads, lack of green corridors to roam, lack of wild areas to forage, breed and hibernate.
- Hedgehogs like spiky leaf litter piles, bramble and long grasses to give birth in June/July and hibernate in the winter from October until March/April.
- Badgers and foxes eat hedgehogs.
- Hedgehogs are a great garden friend as they eat our garden pests.
- Hedgehogs rely on hearing and smell more than eyesight.
- Hazards for hedgehogs are strimmers, mowers, pesticide/herbicide chemicals and slug pellets.
- Organic chemical products are just as bad as non-organic; residues of toxic chemicals have been found in vegetables in areas where chemicals are used; such as sprays and pellets e.g. Glyphosate acid. These chemicals are harmful to us and the food chain.
- Companion and sacrificial planting are good alternatives, as well as beer traps and other natural methods.