Hedgehog Group
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I am looking to start a hedgehog group within my local area of Southwell/Newark, in Nottinghamshire, with the aim of helping hedgehogs in our immediate community. The group would meet and discuss how we are helping hoggies and how we can spread the word in our own neighborhoods
If you are interested and live in the area please get in touch.
Hi Ann
Sorry, I don’t live in your area, but wish you the very best of luck trying to start a local group. It’s a really good idea if not always easy to do. I hope you have been getting a good response locally. Let us know how you get on.
What a great idea, but sadly not in the area.
I am in West Sussex and saw that an Ikea and housing development is planned near Shoreham Airport. I think it has been held up as there are environmental issues but like all these developments it will still go ahead at some point.
If it does go ahead, I wondered if it was legal to do a few nights of hedgehog capture and release to a safer place before the bulldozers go in and kill them and all the other beautiful wildlife.I’m in Beeston. I don’t have much spare time, but I have now got a Facebook page for my hoggies. I’m booked on a Vale care course, and since finding out we have no carers south of Repton/Mansfield, I am going to hopefully become a carer myself. I like the idea of a group, but I’m not sure if I
L be able to fit it in. Please do contact me through FB though. Look for Tomskiia Korn 😊🦔Hi Deeb74, just sent you a facebook request 🙂 I did the course earlier this month I am sure you will enjoy it! I’m in Northamptonshire.
Hi Deeb74,
Fantastic that you are setting up a hedgehog group and doing the Vale care course. I am only up the road from you and have often thought about doing the same, but it is a matter of trying to fit it all in. On top of that, most of our hogs have dissappeared, we have gone from around 10 hogs per night to just one! 🙁 I would love to do the Vale course in October, but until I fathom out what’s happened to them all, I am a bit reluctant in case they have become a tasty snack for some rogue badger! I still remain hopeful, every scrap of food was eaten the other night and a few calling cards were left on the patio, but typically the batteries failed in the camera!
Just going back to Simbo65’S last point.
I would encourage you to go to your local council and planning authority and ask to see their policy on environmental protection and oversight with respect to developments. They are required to have one – and within it they should set out criteria for what they are going to monitor before during and following any development undertaking. Problem is – if they aren’t held to account over these things- they do plough on as you suggest – on the basis that silence is approval.
Joining your local Civil Society is also a way of getting your voice heard – hopefully they are quite active and vocal.
You could also ask whether they have a Hedgehog Champion on the planning Committees – and push for one if they don’t – its a way of challenging developers to protect the local wildlife and fulfil their obligations. some developers are mandated by local councils and planners to build in ways that support local wildlife – little things like holes in fences between gardens – which as we know, can be a lifesaver for the hedgehog populations.Hi Penny
I have only had one hog visiting some nights recently. Today last year there were nine hogs that I actually saw within the space of 2 hours, so excluding any that may have turned up later on the cam. Since the poor hog is smothered in excessive marking, I can only assume that the hogs have found another, possibly nearer, food source and are going there. Very sad as that seems to indicate all the poor things will end up excessively marked and I fear for this, once healthy, population.
Hi Nic,
Sorry to hear that your numbers are still down, but reassured that we are not the only ones with missing hogs. Hopefully it is something to do with the weather, but if they don’t start showing up soon and stuffing themselves ready for hibernation, then I will know that something is definitely wrong.
I know that I said that I would refrain from naming anymore hogs – not that we have any to name – but our last remaining hog has been so excessively marked that you can’t help but identify him. I have named him Nero, seeing as the perpetrator seems to be working their way through the system of Roman numerals and has marked him VI. X, I, II and III have long since vanished, but I have yet to set eyes on IV and V! I shone the torch on him last night and the VI marks have faded so aren’t visible, yet they still show up as dark marks on the camera along with other scribbles, I dread to think what’s being used.
We also have a new cat on the scene, a Bengal I believe, it looks and behaves just like a miniature cheetah and stalks the hogs, not that they seem too bothered. It is a very skinny cat with long legs and the only one that has ever managed to drag the food from under the hedgehog pot. I thought they were normally kept as house cats, so I do wonder if it’s lost or been abandoned, it spent a long time meowing at me last night and trying to get a paw through the door, I even ended up feeding it…I must be going soft!
Hi Penny
What you’ve described sounds to me as if they don’t realise that they are marking the same hedgehog again. I have suspected the same round here. In less than a week the poor hog here was re-marked twice with ridiculously large blobs and thick stripes.
To my mind, if people aren’t prepared to devote the time to identify a hedgehog naturally, they are simply not going to devote the time to warrant marking the hedgehog at all. Let alone to such an extent.
Feeding the cat!! shock, horror! It does sound a rather beautiful cat, though. Hopefully if it has it’s own separate food, it may not try to eat the hogs’ food!?
I’m down from 3 hedgehogs to none, although I am aware of one fatality. I did leave the cats uneaten food out the other evening and it was gone by the morning, but I have an issue with my trail cam at the moment and I haven’t sorted it, so have no cam footage, plus there is no hedgehog poo anywhere so suspect another cat ate it!
Hi Suzynic
Sorry to hear about the fatality – always worse when it’s a hog you’ve got to know well.
It certainly has been a very strange year, hogwise. But there seem to be new people all the time finding they have hogs visiting, so maybe they just all started exploring further afield in the hot weather and have spread out more. We can only hope that that’s the case and that things eventually return to normal.
Good luck with the cam. They are so useful, but can also be such a nuisance! I wouldn’t read too much into there not being any evidence of hog poo. The one here at the moment is not leaving any ‘presents’. This reinforces my previous feeling that they seem to leave more when there are more hogs around. Maybe out of nervousness, to send a message, etc. – I haven’t worked that out! Having said that, the cat visits to my garden do seem to have increased again recently.
Good luck. Hope they turn up again soon.
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