Hi Nic,
Thank you for the response. So just to give an update, we’ve had the gas works ongoing for the last couple of weeks. The first night the trench was open I went out with a torch to check for hogs and sure enough one of them had fallen in, we managed to get her out and she scurried off into the bushes, I think she was tired as there was water in the hole and she’d been swimming but she seemed uninjured thankfully. We asked the gas engineers nicely if they wouldn’t mind putting the plank (that we provided) back in the hole after they finished each day but they never did so we put it in ourselves each evening and we haven’t found any hedgehogs stuck in the hole since.
The hedgehogs have stayed in their nests until yesterday when we had our gas pipes swapped over, there was a really strong lingering smell of gas outside near the nests and I think they finally had enough as when looking on the wildlife camera they both left last night and didn’t come back.
There’s currently some engineers outside filling in the trench so I’m hoping once they move away and things go back to normal the hedgehogs might start coming back.
I’m going to make sure they’ve got plenty of nest material, food and water available so I may be able to entice them back *fingers crossed*
The Gas Network are currently replacing all the old metal pipes for plastic ones throughout the country so no doubt some of you other hedgehog supporters will have similar issues. Hope this post provides some insight on this issue.
Thanks
Laura
