A backyard in the heart of London hosts an array of animals that you’d just as easily find in yards across the United States, including squirrels, rabbits, foxes, and local birds.
But there’s one critter in particular that sticks out in Britain: The hedgehog.
Found throughout England and Wales, European hedgehogs are one of the most beloved wild animals in the United Kingdom — but they're also on the decline.
In 2024, hedgehogs were listed as “near threatened” on the International Union for Conservation of Nature’s red list, largely due to habitat loss and lack of wildlife corridors, which allow them to move safely between nests and find mates.
“Hedgehogs are well established in our urban habitat,” the British Hedgehog Preservation Society noted on its website.
“[They] can, somewhat surprisingly, survive very well in our cities, making extremely good use of cemeteries, railway land, wasteland and both public and private gardens — as long as they are joined up with others.”
To encourage people to make their backyards more hedgehog-friendly, the British Hedgehog Preservation Society created the Hedgehog Street project in 2011.
The project, which is supported by the People's Trust for Endangered Species, helps people across England link their gardens by cutting 13-centimeter-by-13-centimeter holes out of the underside of their fences.
To ensure that no hedgehog holes are blocked accidentally, registered “hedgehog champions” can also get a miniature decal made of recycled plastic that reads: “Hedgehog Highway: Please keep this hole open!”
At the time of publication, 133,385 hedgehog holes had been registered across the country.
Throughout the last 14 years, Hedgehog Street has hosted hedgehog highway competitions to boost awareness for the cause. Categories have included “community effort,” “decorated highways,” and “creative solutions,” with the grand prize going to the “most connected gardens on one street.”
In 2022, Dale Road, in Keyworth, Nottinghamshire, was named Britain's Biggest Hedgehog Street, with 40 connected backyards.
“For one of our roads in Keyworth to be awarded the title of Britain's Biggest Hedgehog Street is a huge achievement and has shown a lot of community spirit,” Keyworth resident Jennifer Manning-Ohren told the BBC.
Manning-Ohren, who runs the animal welfare group Wild Things Keyworth, said that her neighbors had been setting up feeding stations and hedgehog houses in the backyards for years.
“We have been appointing ‘Super Hedgehog Carers’ to create a kind of pit stop for hedgehogs where we provide feed stations, hedgehog houses, and gaps, and we encourage these contacts to spread the hedgehog love on their road,” Manning-Ohren explained.
“We focused our efforts on Dale Road, doing garden visits, drillings, creating ramps, and decorating gaps. Some residents were able to do their own gaps too.”
Through the years, Hedgehog Street has hosted an array of friendly competitions, all in the name of helping hedgehogs.
In May 2025, Hedgehog Street hosted a camera competition to encourage neighbors to track hedgehogs for the National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme.
“We’re using a combination of camera traps, AI, and citizen science to monitor hedgehogs, and we need your help to tag hedgehogs and other wildlife in the camera images,” Hedgehog Street shared in a post. “By becoming a ‘spotter’ you’ll be contributing to vital conservation work.”
The spotter who tagged the most NHMP images was awarded a high-tech NatureSpy camera, the WiFi WildCam 2.
As more neighbors join the hedgehog highway each year, the project has allowed hedgehogs to thrive as they traverse gardens across the country, finding mates, making nests, and eating pests like beetles, slugs, worms, caterpillars, and millipedes — a behavior that has earned them the title “gardener’s best friend.”
“Hedgehogs are a much-loved native species, and helping them, particularly in urban areas, is easy and affordable,” Grace Johnson, the “Hedgehog Officer” for Hedgehog Street, told the BBC.
“We know gardens can be havens for hedgehogs, but only if they're connected to let hedgehogs in and out.”
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Header image via Chris Morgan / Hedgehog Street
