Last night the MP for Plymouth, Sutton and Devonport, Oliver Colvile, stood up in parliament and made an impassioned speech in defence of the hedgehog. He suggested that in order to protect it, we should make it the national symbol of the UK.
The speech was met with some wonderful responses, including a quote that was new to me, the Pashtun saying that “in every happy home is a hedgehog”, along with more predictable references to Mrs Tiggy-Winkle and William Shakespeare. This is the first discussion in parliament to take place since 1566 – and it is the first time I have been given a mention in Hansard – though being labelled as eccentric might take some living down.
It is a shame it has taken so long for our representatives to wake up to what is happening to the natural world. We know that Britain’s hedgehog population has gone down a third in the last decade and probably down over 90% in the past 60 years. We at the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and the People’s Trust for Endangered Species, have been working hard to get the serious nature of this into the public arena.
Now that it has happened, I just hope the lighter moments do not distract from the serious issues at hand. The decline in hedgehog numbers is an indicator of the decline in the quality of ecosystems on which we all rely. They eat macro-invertebrates – worms and insects on which the web of life depends. These are disappearing, unmourned by most – but if the connection with the hedgehog is made, perhaps something will be done to address this potential disaster.
We need a more connected landscape too, not just more food, for hedgehogs to thrive. This is why we launched Hedgehog Street – a project to get gardens linked up with small holes (no bigger than a CD case). We hoped we might get a few thousand people signing up, but are delighted that there are now more than 36,000 “hedgehog champions” doing their bit to make their gardens better for all wildlife – and connected to the wider environment, for those animals not blessed with wings.
Hedgehogs can occupy an area of 30 hectares; they need to be able to move without the barriers of fences and walls. They also need to be able to move without the threat of the car. That, along with the problems of intensive agriculture, and the badger, which is both a competitor for food and a potential predator, will take a little longer to tackle.
So it is a good job that on 21 November in Telford, Shropshire, we are hosting “the day of the hedgehog” – where hundreds of hedgehog champions will join top ecologists and conservationists to celebrate the good work that has been done and to plot a way to a brighter future.
In his speech, Colvile called on Defra to launch an inquiry into how we can save the hedgehog, and plans to set up an all-party parliamentary group for hedgehogs. All of this, if done in conjunction with the experts who have already been at the vanguard, could make the difference we need.
Returning to the idea of a national emblem, the hedgehog is just about perfect. If you look through the folklore surrounding this animal, as I did when writing my book Hedgehog, you will see that there is great wisdom associated with the snuffling beast. And as the Ancient Greek poet Archilochus said: “The fox may know many things, but the hedgehog knows just one, and it is a good thing.” The cleverness of foxes will only get you so far; it is the wisdom of the hedgehog we should embrace – carefully, of course.
