An assessment of a conservation strategy to increase garden connectivity for hedgehogs that requires cooperation between immediate neighbours: A barrier too far?

Urban areas are associated with high levels of habitat fragmentation. For some terrestrial species with limited climbing abilities, property boundaries can pose a significant problem by limiting access to residential gardens. The West European hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus) has declined markedly in...

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Autores principales: Abigail Gazzard, Anne Boushall, Emma Brand, Philip J Baker
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Publicado: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
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spelling oai:doaj.org-article:3a0e84447e814f55bb77d13c2dc1ab7c2021-12-02T20:06:03ZAn assessment of a conservation strategy to increase garden connectivity for hedgehogs that requires cooperation between immediate neighbours: A barrier too far?1932-620310.1371/journal.pone.0259537https://doaj.org/article/3a0e84447e814f55bb77d13c2dc1ab7c2021-01-01T00:00:00Zhttps://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0259537https://doaj.org/toc/1932-6203Urban areas are associated with high levels of habitat fragmentation. For some terrestrial species with limited climbing abilities, property boundaries can pose a significant problem by limiting access to residential gardens. The West European hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus) has declined markedly in the UK but is commonly found in areas of human habitation, including residential gardens. 'Hedgehog Street' is a public engagement campaign aimed at recruiting volunteers ('Hedgehog Champions') to create access points ('hedgehog highways') across garden boundaries to improve habitat connectivity. In this study, we used a series of questionnaire surveys to explore motivations for and obstacles to the creation of highways. Householders were more likely to have created a highway if they were already aware of the Hedgehog Street campaign, if their garden contained a high number of wildlife-friendly features and if they considered watching wildlife to be important. Hedgehog Champions created, on average, 1.69 highways each with 52.0% creating none; this would equate to an estimated >120,000 across all registered Champions. In comparison, 6.1-29.8% of non-Champions stated that they had made a highway. However, most highways had been created in boundaries that could already be traversed via naturally occurring holes: only 11.4% of garden boundaries could be traversed, and 3.2% of gardens accessed, just via a hedgehog highway. In addition, only 5.0% of gardens were considered totally inaccessible to hedgehogs. The most common reasons cited for not having made a highway were that householders' gardens were already accessible to hedgehogs followed by concerns relating to boundary ownership and / or communicating with neighbours. Future studies need to identify strategies for overcoming these obstacles to maximize citizen engagement, particularly with those householders who are not innately "wildlife-friendly", and to quantify the degree to which networks of highways affect patterns of individual movement and, ultimately, populations.Abigail GazzardAnne BoushallEmma BrandPhilip J BakerPublic Library of Science (PLoS)articleMedicineRScienceQENPLoS ONE, Vol 16, Iss 11, p e0259537 (2021)
institution DOAJ
collection DOAJ
language EN
topic Medicine
R
Science
Q
spellingShingle Medicine
R
Science
Q
Abigail Gazzard
Anne Boushall
Emma Brand
Philip J Baker
An assessment of a conservation strategy to increase garden connectivity for hedgehogs that requires cooperation between immediate neighbours: A barrier too far?
description Urban areas are associated with high levels of habitat fragmentation. For some terrestrial species with limited climbing abilities, property boundaries can pose a significant problem by limiting access to residential gardens. The West European hedgehog (Erinaceus europaeus) has declined markedly in the UK but is commonly found in areas of human habitation, including residential gardens. 'Hedgehog Street' is a public engagement campaign aimed at recruiting volunteers ('Hedgehog Champions') to create access points ('hedgehog highways') across garden boundaries to improve habitat connectivity. In this study, we used a series of questionnaire surveys to explore motivations for and obstacles to the creation of highways. Householders were more likely to have created a highway if they were already aware of the Hedgehog Street campaign, if their garden contained a high number of wildlife-friendly features and if they considered watching wildlife to be important. Hedgehog Champions created, on average, 1.69 highways each with 52.0% creating none; this would equate to an estimated >120,000 across all registered Champions. In comparison, 6.1-29.8% of non-Champions stated that they had made a highway. However, most highways had been created in boundaries that could already be traversed via naturally occurring holes: only 11.4% of garden boundaries could be traversed, and 3.2% of gardens accessed, just via a hedgehog highway. In addition, only 5.0% of gardens were considered totally inaccessible to hedgehogs. The most common reasons cited for not having made a highway were that householders' gardens were already accessible to hedgehogs followed by concerns relating to boundary ownership and / or communicating with neighbours. Future studies need to identify strategies for overcoming these obstacles to maximize citizen engagement, particularly with those householders who are not innately "wildlife-friendly", and to quantify the degree to which networks of highways affect patterns of individual movement and, ultimately, populations.
format article
author Abigail Gazzard
Anne Boushall
Emma Brand
Philip J Baker
author_facet Abigail Gazzard
Anne Boushall
Emma Brand
Philip J Baker
author_sort Abigail Gazzard
title An assessment of a conservation strategy to increase garden connectivity for hedgehogs that requires cooperation between immediate neighbours: A barrier too far?
title_short An assessment of a conservation strategy to increase garden connectivity for hedgehogs that requires cooperation between immediate neighbours: A barrier too far?
title_full An assessment of a conservation strategy to increase garden connectivity for hedgehogs that requires cooperation between immediate neighbours: A barrier too far?
title_fullStr An assessment of a conservation strategy to increase garden connectivity for hedgehogs that requires cooperation between immediate neighbours: A barrier too far?
title_full_unstemmed An assessment of a conservation strategy to increase garden connectivity for hedgehogs that requires cooperation between immediate neighbours: A barrier too far?
title_sort assessment of a conservation strategy to increase garden connectivity for hedgehogs that requires cooperation between immediate neighbours: a barrier too far?
publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
publishDate 2021
url https://doaj.org/article/3a0e84447e814f55bb77d13c2dc1ab7c
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