Hi daffydill
It isn’t ideal. But from the hogs point of view – as things stand, there isn’t sufficient habitat of sufficiently good quality for many of them to survive without being offered some supplementary food. That’s why we hog lovers all need to do our best to make sure our gardens are as hog friendly (which means wildlife friendly) as they can be. In other words improving the habitat in them and by linking gardens and by that means increasing the available habitat.
Hogs are apparently doing less well in rural areas. That is probably partly down to habitat loss, modern farming methods, loss of hedgerows, large fields of monoculture, fragmentation of habitat, etc. It’s a complex problem. But many gardens mimic their preferred habitat of hedgerows and woodland edge (as they do for many bird species) and there are more gardens in suburban areas, so arguably a larger source of more suitable habitat. If the hogs are lucky enough to live where there is sufficient quantity of sufficiently good habitat, they would be able to survive without our help. But many do not.
As I understand it, animals are choosing to move into urban areas, sometimes due to loss of habitat, potentially persecution, etc. But also (i.e. foxes and badgers) because humans seem to be a very wasteful and messy species (with regard to food in this instance) and the animals are able to take advantage of that. But of course urban/suburban areas have their problems too – roads come to mind.
But, it’s really all much more complicated than a few paragraphs, or I can do justice to! But just a few thoughts.
You might be interested in:
https://www.hedgehogstreet.org/launched-today-state-britains-hedgehogs/
