A year of Hedgehog Friendly Heath

Conservation Corner
Written By Heath Hands

Over the last twelve months, we’ve been busy working on our wildlife connectivity project, Hedgehog Friendly Heath.

The aim of the project is to build on hedgehog monitoring surveys on and around Hampstead Heath with our partners to identify and improve wildlife connectivity between the Heath and other Sites of Importance for Nature Conservation (SINCs). While the project focuses a lot on hedgehogs, the aim is that all other wildlife also benefits!

This project is a fantastic collaboration of partners from the community and further afield, including London Hogwatch, City of London Corporation, English Heritage, Highgate Neighbourhood Forum, Growing Green, the Heath and Hampstead Society, and the Zoological Society of London. Very much a team effort!

Find out what we’ve been up to below.

Monitoring

We’ve been carrying out targeted monitoring, both with footprint tunnels and with wildlife cameras to check on areas of interest - for instance, near a corridor to another green space, or near areas of habitat we are managing for wildlife. Surveys have been carried included the Heath Extension (led by ZSL and Hampstead Garden Suburb), the Old Orchard Garden near Hampstead Lane, Golders Hill Park and in South End Green.

We recently captured the below footage near one of our nest boxes at the Hampstead ponds! We have also been gathering hedgehog sightings around the Heath to help inform any potential corridors, checking for barriers to connectivity and removing these where possible. If you see a hedgehog on or around the Heath, do let us know!

We’re currently gearing up to a large 2024 Hampstead Heath hedgehog survey in collaboration with ZSL’s London Hogwatch and the City of London (click here to read the report of the 2021 survey).

Hedgehog first aid

In 2023 we reviewed and improved the Heath’s hedgehog first aid protocols. As part of this, we built on our links with ZSL to treat ill or injured hedgehogs, with the aim of helping them recover before releasing them. We put this into action in December, and took a poorly hedgehog down to the wildlife vets at ZSL for treatment. If you find a poorly hedgehog on the Heath (a hedgehog seen in the daytime is generally a bad sign!), do let us know!

A rescued hedgehog at the Hive, Hampstead Heath

Safe delivery at the zoo

Nest boxes and conservation work on our green spaces

As the Heath is a busy place, we’ve been installing, checking and repairing a network of hedgehog nest boxes, which provides a temporary hiding place for any hogs as they move around our green spaces. Many thanks to the Village School for helping us with this work in March of this year and if you want to support this work, you can adopt a hedgehog box!

We’ve also been working on planting new hedgerows and conserving existing hedgerows as key habitats for our hedgehogs. Many thanks to CPRE London’s Hedgerow Heroes fund and for supporting this work.

See the pictures below for some of the action!

Community engagement

A key part of the project has been community engagement: if we are to connect the Heath with other nearby green spaces that might be suitable for hedgehogs to reduce population isolation, we need usable wildlife corridors, including through gardens, allotments and greener streets, and this needs people power!

We’ve run activities with 11 local schools, engaging hundreds children about hedgehogs and encouraging them to take action with hedgehog-friendly pledges, campaign against littering, creating a hedgehog highway in their garden if they have one and leaving wild corners.

We’ve also taken part in lots of local community events and have been working with a range of community groups who are also working to green their areas, such as Growing Green in the Holly Lodge Estate, the Highgate Neighbourhood Forum, the Heath and Hampstead Society and many more.

What you can do

If you want to support hedgehogs in the Heath surrounds and our connectivity work you can:

Heath Hands
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Spring on the Heath