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
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2021
Materias:	Medicine R Science Q
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/3a0e84447e814f55bb77d13c2dc1ab7c
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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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An assessment of a conservation strategy to increase garden connectivity for hedgehogs that requires cooperation between immediate neighbours: A barrier too far?

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