After achieving Silver Accreditation for Hedgehog Friendly Campus, we are now aiming for Gold Accreditation.

As part of the campaign, on the week commencing 9 May 2022, we completed hedgehog surveys at our Lord Mayor’s Walk campus, as well as at the Grange and Limes accommodation sites, and at the Boathouse.

At each site, we put together a long triangular footprint tunnel and slid in a long piece of carboard. Hedgehog food was placed at the centre to attract the hedgehogs, and paper was taped to each side. Hedgehog friendly ink was placed toward the middle, so that their footprints showed up on the paper when they moved out of the tunnel.

The surveys were a huge success, with hedgehog prints found at all of the sites apart from the Boathouse. Prints were found at Lord Mayor’s Walk on all five days of the survey, and the hedgehog food was also taken. They were present at Grange for three of the five days, and food was taken, whilst they were found on one of the days at Limes, where some of the food was also taken.

Our next hedgehog surveys are due to take place in July, with more taking place in September. For more information about our campaign, please visit our Hedgehog Friendly Campus intranet page, our Environment and sustainability webpage, or follow us on twitter at @YSJSustain.