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THE WILTSHIRE ARCHAEOLOGICAL AND NATURAL HISTORY MAGAZINE 



varied supply of food and, despite the attention of 

 dogs and cats which are no more than a nuisance, 

 they give some protection from the more aggressive 

 predator, the badger. In Wiltshire, as elsewhere, they 

 appear to be the prime habitat for the hedgehog at 

 present. 



Morris has discussed some possible causes of 

 the decline of hedgehogs, emphasising the changes 

 in farming practices - larger fields with fewer 

 hedges, the use of pesticides which both remove 

 the natural sources of the hedgehog's food and may 

 indirectly affect their health. The latter may also be 

 a factor in garden mortality along with drowning 

 in ponds, entanglement in netting, incineration in 

 bonfires, etc. The mortality on the roads, he has 

 suggested, has probably accounted for 50,000 to 

 100,000 per year etc., and this, to judge from the 

 Wiltshire surveys, may, itself, be a declining figure. 



The badger has been given, since the 

 Countryside Acts of the early eighties, almost 

 complete protection with the result that the 

 numbers have increased greatly. The two surveys 

 conducted by Stephen Harris in the mid-eighties 

 and mid-nineties (see Wilson et al.1997) showed 

 an overall countrywide increase of 77%, and, while 

 in Wiltshire it may be somewhat less — the number 

 of main setts in the 54 sq.km. surveyed was up from 

 24 to 29 (Kay, 1998) -- local increases were 

 probably up to the national average. One can hardly 

 doubt that the larger number of badgers is one 

 factor in the decline of the hedgehog but how big a 

 factor is difficult to determine. Locally the evidence 

 seems very strong, whether one is considering long- 

 term effects as at, say, the Donheads, or more recent 

 trends as around Lockeridge or Bradford-on-Avon. 

 To judge by the responses received in this survey, 

 the last two to four years have seen a particularly 

 steep downward trend and it will be important to 

 follow up these results within the next five years. 



One disturbing trend that should be noted is 

 that as a result of both roadway casualties and 

 badger predation the distribution of hedgehogs is 

 being fragmented, and is now centred largely in 

 villages and urban outskirts, thus being subject to 

 the well-known hazards of survival for small, 

 isolated populations. The future of the hedgehog 

 needs careful study. 



ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS 



I am indebted to the many contributors, individuals 

 and garden clubs, who sent in observations, in 

 particular to those mentioned in the text for detailed 

 dedescriptions. I have to thank Sally Scott-White 

 and Hilary Davies for providing the maps and for 

 helpful criticisms. 



Bibliography 



BROWNE, M.j 1987, Insectivores in Wiltshire: 



Hedgehog, WANHM, 81,111-122. 

 DILLON, P., 1997, Mammals in Wiltshire, Wilts. 



Archaeol. and Nat. Hist. Soc. 

 DONCASTER, C. P., 1992,Testingthe role ofintraguild 



predation in regulating hedgehog populations, Proc. 



R. Soc. Land (1992) 249, 113-117. 

 GILLAM, B., 1967, The Distribution of Badgers in 



Wiltshire, 1966, WANHM, 62, 145-162. 

 KAY, H.E.M., 1998, Badgers, in Recording Wiltshire's 



Biodiversity, 4, 5-6. 

 MORRIS, P., 1994, The Hedgehog, The Mammal 



Society. 

 TAPPER, S.j 1992, Game Heritage, The Game 



Conservancy, Fordingbridge. 

 WILSON, G.j HARRIS, S., and McLAREN, G, 1997, 



Changes in the British Badger Population, 1 988-1 997. 



London: People's Trust for Endangered Species. 



