Hedgehogs can travel 2km in a single night as they search for food and shelter, but sadly our garden fences and walls limit their movement. Small 13cm square hedgehog highways through fences allow hedgehogs into our gardens, and are a vital way to safeguard the future of the species.
Hedgehogstreet.org – a partnership between the Hedgehog Preservation Society and People’s Trust for Endangered Species – is running a campaign to encourage and even lobby fence manufacturers and sales companies to include hedgehog holes in fences as an option – maybe eventually as a standard.
Some fencing manufacturers and suppliers already offer hedgehog friendly options such as gravelboards with ready-made hedgehog highway. This is fantastic news for hedgehogs, and we’d love to see more fencing companies offering such products, and raising awareness of them with customers.
Examples of hedgehog friendly gravel boards can be viewed below, and are currently offered by national companies including Jacksons and Birkdale, but check our list of companies to see more.
Let’s make this change happen quicker
To make this change happen quicker here are a couple of templates for letters / emails that you could write to your local fencing companies to encourage them to include hedgehog holes in their fencing offerings.
If more fencing companies offered this then more people purchasing fencing will think about what they are doing if they brick up or fence off their garden completely from the wildlife that depend on the space.
Join the national campaign and talk to your local fencing companies.
Here are the templates – make your voice heard
Thanks to B P Collins for their wonderful sponsorship of this project 2023.
