BHPS is delighted to announce that Hedgehog Awareness Week is back from 4^th–10^th May 2025! Our annual campaign highlights the problems hedgehogs face and how to help them.

This year we’re asking people to ‘Give hedgehogs the edge!’ by making the edges of their gardens and green spaces havens for wildlife, and encouraging landowners such as schools and councils to do the same.

Hedgehogs are a great indicator species – their needs are quite simple so if they aren’t being met, it means the habitat is deficient – and should ring alarm bells for other species, including humans!

Try these wildlife-friendly ways to give hedgehogs the edge:

• Let the edges grow wild! Log piles, leaf heaps, and wild edges attract natural food and offer shelter for hedgehogs. Always carefully check for wildlife before mowing, strimming or tidying wild areas.
• Add Hedgehog highways! These 13cm x 13cm square gaps in the base of boundary walls and fences ensure hedgehogs can access vital habitat. Once made, log them on the Big Hedgehog Map.
• Make ponds safe! Ponds are great for wildlife but ensure there are escape routes – add sloping edges, ramps or half-submerged rocks so hedgehogs can scramble out.
• Look out for litter! Litter is very harmful to wildlife, and while it’s hopefully not an issue in your own garden, it’s likely to be in the wider environment. Contact landowners where litter is a problem; remember to point out the danger to wildlife.
• Water is vital for all wildlife and can be scarce, especially during hot spells. Make sure there are always clean shallow bowls of water available for hedgehogs – add a few pebbles for bees and butterflies to perch on so they can safely drink too.
• Stop using poisons and pesticides that could directly harm wildlife and destroy the food chain.
• Netting can become entangled in hedgehog spines: make sure sports nets are put away and garden netting is raised 30cm off the ground so hedgehogs can safely pass under.

Fay Vass, Chief Executive for BHPS, said: “Hedgehogs are a species on the edge of real trouble – but there are many small actions we can all do during #HedgehogWeek and beyond to help create and link fantastic habitat for hedgehogs; just a little effort from each of us could make life a lot easier for them and help bring them back from the brink!

“If you don’t have a garden, you can still help by contacting public space managers, neighbours, family and friends to ensure they are all doing their bit, sharing our leaflets and posters; donating to our Hedgehog Awareness Week appeal; or joining BHPS as a supporter!

“Younger hedgehog fans can also enter our #HedgehogWeek competition to design a poster!”