Hedgehogs, the little pigs of the hedgerow and garden, were once quite common.

Nowadays they have become a bit of a rarity. Various figures are bandied about quantifying their population crash. Some put it as high as 95%. Various factors are blamed for this crash in numbers in as little as 20 years. I guess the main culprit is modern farming practices. Grass now is often single species monoculture supporting little insects, fertilised, rolled and sprayed often. Fields are cultivated right up to the edges, not leaving the untouched edge strips and headlands of old. In gardens the use of slug pellets has both reduced the slug and snails available to hedgehogs, and when hedgehogs eat such poisoned slugs, the poison residue affects them.

There is of course one natural effect that is only now recognised.

The badger population has expanded greatly in the same time period. Every part of Scotland has seen this increase. Now badgers have always eaten hedgehogs, in their lower numbers in the past, not affecting the numbers of hedgehogs. But with the growth in environmental pressures allied to the big increase in hedgehog eating badgers, hedgehog numbers could only collapse. If you have hedgehogs in your garden, lucky you and look after them.