How extinction works ..

Day 130 #365DaysWild

This is how extinction works.

No big bangs. Just a gradual, steady, sad fading away.

Hedgehogs should be tucked up by now, plump and safe from the rigours of the winter. But it remains unseasonably mild, so if they’re about they’ll be expending their energy and fat stores hunting for food because the weather is so warm. They lose body mass and fail to make it through to spring.

Hedgehogs are in trouble right across the country,

Changing climate.

Roadkill.

Pesticides.

Predation by badgers.

Lack of invertebrates.

…… All a depressing pincer-action.

Can we help?!

We are a six-acre garden with biodiversity at its heart. Adjacent to a wood.

We are an organic garden that hasn’t used pesticides since our arrival in 2011.

We are a mile away from the nearest busy road.

We did have hedgehogs. They fed in our hedgehog cafes at night giving us so much pleasure. But. We haven’t seen one here since June 2019

What’s going wrong?

One guess is the use of slug pellets on the farm next door. We have no influence over this.

Another could be the growing badger population. We know badgers predate on hedgehogs.

But this cockeyed optimist can’t help himself.

Today, at the end of the shift I built piles of leaves and sticks and meadow hay. Each with its’ own pipe entrance to the most snug little winter home Mrs Tiggywinkle could hope for.

And a camera to monitor their use.

There may no longer be hedgehogs in this area.

But if, one snuffling, prickly day a hedgehog drops by, he or she will be spoilt for bedtime choice.

And there you have it. They will not spontaneously erupt from the earth. Suitable patches of habitat like ours are too-frequently unconnected to other local habitats. No matter how optimal we can make habitats, if the hedgehogs have gone they will not return..

That’s how extinction works.