Throughout 2025 I hope you would like to follow our monthly hints to help hedgehogs. To start the year, would you like to take a couple of minutes to watch the ‘Hedgehog Close’ video which shows how important it is for hedgehogs to be able to roam freely around our towns and villages between gardens?
If your garden doesn’t already have a 13cm squared gap in (the size of a CD case) then would you consider creating one to let hedgehogs into your garden? It can be as simple as leaving a gate permanently open, digging under or cutting a gap at the bottom of a fence.
If you are creating a new fence, you can buy gravel boards that have hedgehog highway gaps already in them. There was a campaign run by Hedgehog Street last year to get more companies to offer this. Click here for a current list. It says watch this space for Scotland, but there are some National companies on there that might deliver. If you find out about anywhere more local that will sell them, can you please get in touch (jen@sustainingdunbar.org) as this is something I would like to find out more about this year.
Also, if you know of any fencing companies who are happy to offer to cut a hedgehog highway gap when creating a new fence, then please let me know as well and I can promote them too. If East Lothian Council are putting in a new fence for you then please just ask them to make one of the slats a little shorter to make a hedgehog highway. A resident in the Ashfield area of Dunbar requested this and they were more than happy to do this for her.
If you want to get 10 out of 10 for your hedgehog highway, then add a new hedge to your boundary. Once it grows up and matures you could remove your fence and have a natural highway which also provides an ideal place for hedgehogs to safely travel, find food and even shelter, breed or hibernate. The Woodland Trust provide free tree packs for Schools and Community Groups (the application deadline for delivery at the end of February is Monday 13th January but there is another deadline for delivery in November). Click here. It’s still a good time to plant bare root hedging, which is much cheaper than buying plants during the rest of the year. Click here for some ideas and more information.
I’m often asked about creating a hole and pets escaping. Of course it depends on the size of your pet, but this size of gap is pretty small, so big enough to let hedgehogs roam but not for the majority of pets to escape. Hedgehogs won’t be put off coming into your garden if you have pets. For more information about the relationship hedgehogs have with other animals see here.
Throughout 2025, I hope we can create more hedgehog highways throughout Dunbar, linking gardens and outdoor spaces and providing safer routes that allow hedgehogs more places to find food, shelter and breed (they do travel around a mile each night) and in turn reducing habitat fragmentation which is thought to be one of the reasons for the severe decline in hedgehogs over the last few decades. If you have a garden completely enclosed by a wall and would consider getting a hole drilled in it for hedgehogs, then please get in touch as our project is hoping to trial this initiative.
If you already have a gap in your garden (or you do create one) can you please add it to the Big Hedgehog Map as a hole? Click here. This will let allow us to build a better picture of what restrictions there are for them throughout the town.
The icing on the cake is then to label your highway to discourage it from being obstructed or being blocked up in the future. It’s also a great way to inspire others to make their own hedgehog highway gap too. If you feel confident in speaking with your neighbours, then maybe you could ask them if you could link your gardens up with a gap between you. I can give you leaflets to hand out to your neighbours with more information about creating a hedgehog highway as well-just drop me an email. I do plan to deliver more leaflets in areas of the town where I think hedgehog highways would be most beneficial-any volunteer help with this would be brilliant! I have a small supply of hedgehog highway signs available for free (bought with a kind donation from Lammermuir House Care Home), so if you create your gap and want one then get in touch. Click here to buy one yourself.
Anyway, I hope you’ve found some information here of interest. If you want to keep reading then have a look here about linking your garden. There will be more monthly tips next month. I’ll be talking about ways to make your garden safer for hedgehogs in February. Thanks for reading!