Heat and the Hedgehogs

Safari Maiden Wed Jul 14, 2010 1:54 pm

Prickly heat: the suffering of the hedgehogs
By Michael McCarthy

Prolonged hot weather may be fine for us but it's not much good for wildlife, and it is particularly bad for hedgehogs, while for baby hedgehogs it's even worse.

The heat and drought of the last few weeks have dried out the ground to such an extent that normal hedgehog food items such as slugs and worms have become much harder to find and there is a lack of available water. As a result, adults tend to wander off for great distances on food hunts, and youngsters get left behind.

Tiggywinkles, the wildlife hospital near Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire which is something of a hedgehog specialist, currently has 250 distressed hedgehogs on its books and 50 of them are babies like this one peering through a crowd of adult spines. "A lot of them are orphaned," said the Tiggywinkles founder, Les Stocker. "And they wander off looking for food." Tiggywinkles takes in about 3,000 hedgehogs a year.

**Laikipia** Wed Jul 14, 2010 4:01 pm

Sad news SM - the ground is so hard there are no worms to be seen, i imagine the Blackbirds are struggling as well, also how do the moles cope?

Tiggywinkles does a wonderful job saving all these poor little hedgehogs.

Lai

**whitestarling** Thu Jul 15, 2010 9:39 am

Thanks for that SM. To be honest it was'nt something I'd thought about. You worry about Hedgehogs in the winter, and if they will survive, but I never thought of the problems they have faced with the warm weather. Thanks for bringing it to our attention
WS

**littlewid** Sun Jul 18, 2010 5:36 pm

It may seem daft but after Bentley and I came across a little Hedgehog the other year, I am always on the look out for them on our walks, so far I haven't seen any which I am not sure if its a good sign that they are all ok or a bad one that they are not surviving, but we keep up our vigil of looking out for them everyday.
Tiggywinkles does an amazing job and many little and big hedgehogs owe them their lives.

You are right Lai, it must also be hard for the Blackbirds and the ground must be really hard for the Moles too, it's always the wildlife that suffers isnt it.

littlewid-x-

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