The quiet disappearance of the hedgehog from the British countryside is a tragedy showing we are all becoming more estranged from the natural world

A new State of Nature report by 25 conservation groups including the Wildlife Trusts, the RSPB and the Mammal Society is predictably depressing: most British species are struggling and one in three have halved in number in the past half century. Hedgehogs have disappeared even more dramatically. Even if the 30 million population estimate from the 1950s is a massive over-exaggeration, hedgehogs have declined by more than 90%. Numbers have fallen by more than a third since 2003 and fewer than a million roam our countryside today. The quiet disappearance of this much-loved mammal – currently performing strongly in a BBC Wildlife Magazine poll to find a national species for Britain – may rarely make the headlines but it is a tragedy, and another small way in which we are all becoming more estranged from the natural world.

Source: The Guardian, 22 May 2013
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/may/22/hegehogs-disappeari…