A retired hedgehog expert, Dr Pat Morris, performed a study 40 years ago showing that temperature affects when the animals emerge from hibernation. With the British Hedgehog Preservation Society and People’s Trust for the Endangered Species, he wants to see if warming since then has changed things.

Hedgehog numbers have fallen in the last 50 years, largely due to land use change.

From an estimated 30 million in the 1950’s, the UK population shrank to about 1.5 million in 1995 and has most certainly fallen since then.

The spread of urban landscapes and industrial farming are among the factors involved; but climate change could be having an impact aswell.

Dr Morris, a researcher from Royal Holloway, University of London in the 1970’s, conducted a survey trying to map hedgehog populations across the country. He took observations of hedgehogs that people had sent in from mapping. He found that hedgehogs where starting to be spotted emerging from hibernation 3 weeks earlier in the south of England than they were in Scotland.

Since then the worlds surface on average has warmed and the UK is no exception, with the Central England temperature record for example, showing a rise of at least 0.5C.

Wednesday January 18^th 2012
The Onlines