Hedgehog Friendly Campus
Hedgehog Friendly Campus is an initiative funded by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society. It aims to turn university campuses into habitats where hedgehogs can safely live and thrive. It’s a chance for our community to come together to make real changes for the local wildlife.
About the campaign
The Hedgehog Friendly Campus initiative aims to highlight the issues faced by UK hedgehogs, and to encourage university staff and students to help them combat these on campuses. The UK hedgehog population declined by up to 50% since the year 2000, with less than a million of them left. As of July 2020, hedgehogs have officially been listed as Vulnerable to Extinction on Britain’s IUCN Red List. This is due to a range of factors, mostly related to human activities and urbanization. They include environmental poisons, road traffic, litter, drowning, and lack of food, water and connected habitat. Seeing as university campuses often cover large areas of land, it’s a great opportunity to turn them into suitable hedgehog habitats.
How does it work?
The Hedgehog Friendly Campus team is open to all staff and students, regardless of department, age, level of knowledge or ability. The goal is to complete actions from the dedicated best-practice toolkit. Examples include community events such as litter picks, fundraising events, hedgehog surveys, and installing hedgehog houses on campus. Completed actions count towards official accreditation: Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum.
We are a Gold accredited Hedgehog Friendly Campus
At the beginning of this year, our university has been awarded the Gold accreditation, after achieving Siver in January 2022! We're now working towards the Platinum award.
Get involved
- Join the Hedgehog Friendly Campus group on Teams
- Take part in our events and activities - online and on campus.
- Check out our Hedgehog Friendly blog to find useful hedgehog-related articles and resources.
- Support the British Hedgehog Preservation Society by donating postcards, foreign/pre-decimal coins and notes, postcards, working mobile phones, unwanted or broken gold or silver, new goods for raffles, cigarette cards, surplus packs of seeds, used stamps, or empty printer cartridges.
If you have any questions, or would like to make a donation to the British Hedgehog Preservation Society, please get in touch with us at uoshedgehogfriendly@salford.ac.uk.