HELP HEDGEHOGS!

David Goff, Co-ordinator of Rothbury CAN's Hedgehog Group, gives the following report on the Monitoring Programme.

Hey Hedgehogs, How Are You Doing?

Rothbury CAN Set Up England’s Northern Most Hedgehog Monitoring

Towards the end of June volunteers from Rothbury CAN set out to install thirty camera traps at Cragside Estate aiming to establish how well, if at all, hedgehogs are getting along in our neck of the woods.

The good folks at the National Trust had agreed to allow their iconic site to become the latest location for the National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme (NHMP), a conservation scheme launched by the People’s Trust for Endangered Species and British Hedgehog Preservation Society in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, the Zoological Society of London, and Durham University.

Setting up so many cameras in one day promised to be no small task and initially we were worried that we may not be able to rustle up enough helping hands. However, we had underestimated the fondness felt for our spikey friends as well as the generous nature of local folks and we ended up having to cap the number of volunteers as so many people wanted to be involved.

OFF THE BEATEN TRACK

The day we chose to set up the cameras turned out to be one of the hottest of the summer and reaching the locations carefully chosen by experts from Durham University proved to be hard work as they needed to be in some of the least accessible parts of the estate.

However, ably led off the beaten track by rangers from the Trust, we managed to hardly ever get lost!  We were schooled in setting the cameras by the admirable Keiron Young from Durham University, one of the leading experts on badgers in the country!

Each camera needed to be set at the ideal height and angle for catching any passing hogs as well as being carefully calibrated, a process that called for some fancy stick waggling among the foliage.

At the end of the day and four successful shifts later, all the cameras were in place and working. All that remained was to reverse the process and collect them in again thirty days later!

In there, somewhere!

Hardly ever lost!

ANALYSING THE RESULTS

And now, all the photos have been uploaded to the national data base at Mammal Web

Along with thousands of images from all over the country, they need to be categorised so the experts can do their thing and analyse the results.

We can help here too by spending a few minutes on the Mammal Web site. You just have to say what animals you can see in a selection of pictures; it’s a lot of fun. Go to the part of the site for the NHMP here select NHMP North East England to classify and away you go!

When it’s all done, the results from Cragside will be filtered out and we shall begin to get an idea of how well our hedgehog population is doing.

JOIN US TO BUILD A HEDGEHOG HOME FOR YOUR GARDEN! ALL WELCOME £15 ALL MATERIALS SUPPLIED. September 27th. Booking essential.

Last year we had great fun making our own hog houses. Come along and make one, you will be helping these endangered creatures more secure.

Make a lovely home for a hog. Everything supplied!

If you would like to join us, and make your own hedgehog house, please email rothbury.can@gmail.com, put HEDGEHOG in the subject, and say if you would prefer morning or afternoon.