People with home trail cameras urged to join Nottingham Trent University hedgehog conservation study

A new study aims to help monitor native, wild hedgehogs by harnessing the combined potential of personal trail cameras in people’s gardens.

Researchers at Nottingham Trent University are urging people with the sensor-activated cameras, also known as camera traps, to support the ‘spot a hog’ project.

It is hoped that the study could eventually help to reveal new information on hedgehog locations and abundance as the species has undergone considerable decline in recent decades.

In particular, the West European Hedgehog is currently listed as ‘near threatened’ in Europe by the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

Researchers say, new information captured from private gardens, which remain an important habitat for many urban adapted species, could help support conservation efforts for the spiky nocturnal creatures.

The ‘spot a hog’ project is open to anyone in the UK with a camera trap and aims to tap into a growing number of people using trail cameras to view wildlife at home.

Participants on the project will receive advice on how to adjust and calibrate their cameras, so that they are suitable for the study.

All the captured images will be submitted to citizen science platform MammalWeb where they will be assessed and the data analysed. If people don't own a camera trap they can still help by registering as a spotter to support the team in identifying what is in the images.

“To identify why hedgehogs are in decline and which habitats sustain healthy hedgehog populations, we need high quality data from across the country,” said Paulina Pawlikowska, who is carrying out the work as part of her PhD research.

“Trail cameras are widely used by researchers for wildlife monitoring, with some amazing initiatives, but we know that they are also increasingly used by people to observe wildlife in their gardens.

“The work is also important as we know that hedgehogs are increasingly observed in urban rather than rural areas.

Anyone interested in participating in the survey should visit the project’s website: www.hedgehography.com/

It is hoped the study will prove the concept of using private cameras and a citizen science approach for future monitoring programmes.