Hedgehog hostel appeals for new premises

Heather Johnson currently runs the rescue charity from her home in Chatteris

A teacher who runs a hedgehog hostel from her home says record demand means they need new premises.

Heather Johnson, 49, set up the rescue service 10 years ago in Chatteris, Cambridgeshire, and it is now a registered charity with 45 volunteers.

She is currently caring for 25 prickly patients but with capacity at 12, helpers are having to foster a further 20 hedgehogs.

Hedgehogs are officially classed as vulnerable to extinction in the UK and were added to the red list of under-threat mammals in 2020.

Heather Johnson says due to a bumper breeding season she has already taken in more than 300 poorly hedgehogs this year - normally the entire annual number

Ms Johnson said a bumper breeding season and unpredictable weather had made life difficult for hoglets in the wild.

Wet conditions had caused a shortage of natural food - and mild weather meant they were not hibernating properly.

"The temperature needs to be below three degrees for five consecutive days to trigger their hibernation, but as we know the weather is all over the place these days," she said.

"Development is also eroding their habitat, hedgerow is being lost, it is a terrible situation for these much-loved animals."

Her mid-terraced home on Chatteris High Street look like any other property, but inside is a 2.5m (just over 8ft) square sun room filled with plastic crates containing hedgehogs.

She said if the hostel did not exist, many hogs would not survive.

"They need so much help, and if we don't help, we won't have any," she said.

"Many [people] think that in the next 20 years we might not have them any more in our back gardens, they are in decline so much in Britain."

Trustee Lucy Hubbard is hoping money can be raised to buy an empty shop unit on Chatteris High Street, which she thinks would put hedgehogs at the "heart of the community"

Volunteers for the charity have been scoping out new premises, but they will cost tens of thousands of pounds to rent.

'Indicator species'

Lucy Hubbard, 57, is a trustee, and recently put out an appeal for someone to let them use a shed or garage.

"Since then we have found an empty shop unit on the high street [but] the only problem is the cost, about £95,000," she said.

"We are really hoping we can generate the money to fund it, it would be a great asset as we could involve more of the community.

"We already go out and give talks about hedgehogs and people are fascinated by them."

A report by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society found that rural hedgehog populations had declined by between 30% and 75% in parts of the countryside between 2000 and 2022, but that urban populations appeared to be stabilising.

A spokesperson for the society said: "We hope that the public are becoming increasingly aware of the plight hedgehogs face and how important it is that we act now.

"Hedgehogs are an important indicator species – they don’t need a lot to survive, and if the environment is so depleted that basic food, connected habitat and shelter is in short supply for hedgehogs, it has serious implications for other species, including us humans."