THE VALE Local Nature Partnership alongside the Vale of Glamorgan council are launching a pilot scheme to create hedgehog highways on a residential housing estate in Penarth.
Hedgehogs travel around one mile every night through our parks and gardens in their quest to find food and other hogs to mate with. If you have an enclosed garden you might be getting in the way of their plans.
One of the main reasons why hedgehogs are declining in Britain is because our fences and walls are becoming more and more secure, reducing the amount of land available to them.
Penarth Hedgehog Street will help to connect gardens allowing hedgehogs more space to breed, find food and keep them off the roads. This will form part of the national Hedgehog Street campaign.
As part of the project, residents will be able to borrow footprint tracking tunnels and camera traps to monitor and record the presence of hedgehogs.
Emily Shaw, the Local Nature Partnership Co-ordinator for the Vale of Glamorgan, said the mission is to reconnect people in the Vale with nature.
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“The way we will do this is by developing a nature recovery network with partners, where we hope to engage the public, local community groups and organisations, as well as schools and businesses to take part in practical action for nature in their communities,” she added.
“The Vale’s LNP is one of several across Wales with each county hosting their own LNP and is part of a fantastic network through a project called LNP Cymru which is co-ordinated by the WCVA and funded by the Welsh Government.”
As part of Hedgehog Awareness Week, the Vale Local Nature Partnership has launched a new pilot hedgehog highways scheme on a residential estate in Penarth to encourage residents to create small holes in their fences to help hedgehogs move around more easily.
Residents will also be able to get involved in a citizen science project to help us gather data on Penarth’s local hedgehog populations.
A free online talk is being held on Thursday, May 27, with Stephen Powles who set up a similar scheme in a small village in Oxfordshire.
For more information head to https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/creating-hedgehog-highways-in-the-vale-of-glamorgan-tickets-152970417637.
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