Remember when I told you about the Hedgehog Awareness Week art competition? Well here are a couple of the more than a hundred entries! Wonderful work.
The week is coming to an end - but there are still lovely things happening. I can post more links to the films narrated by Chris Packham - in fact they are all now available from the society's YouTube page.
Oh - before I forget - yesterday I had an urge to write something not very hedgehoggy ... so I put it up on my substack page. I think you might be interested ... give it a read and sign up (free) to receive other offerings ... as well as duplicates from here but with added comments!
I was talking with someone last night who was telling me of his worries for AI ... and I was explaining how we were using it to help hedgehogs ... do you remember me talking about the National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme? PLEASE do take a look and consider signing up ... because we need you to help us where AI cannot! I was telling him about how AI was able to filter out the trail camera videos of people and emptiness - but that people were still needed to refine the data - to identify which species were seen ... it becomes a fun game - and it really will help us get an idea of how many hedgehogs there are in the country.
So what have you been up to during HAW? Would be great to hear what hedgehog-helping has been going on ... and while we have space on change.org to write about that - you can pop over to the Facebook Group - and please, do share your adventures.
Before I go - yesterday I had the good fortune to seeing Kabir Kaul talk at the Oxford Martin School. He was talking urban nature recovery in London - and held the room of academics as he shared the work he has been doing - about his belief in the importance of hooking young people in on nature NOW - because there is such a great absence of connection with nature for many people - and it is hard to love what you do not know - and - as I often say - we will not fight to save what we do not love.
He talked about the risk of young people growing up believing that what they see now in their gardens is what we should have ... not being aware that this is already tragically degraded. A perfect example of Shifting Baselines.
Anyway - the reason I mention this is because when I first met Kabir he was a slightly awkward but very keen 13 year old ... now he is 18 and wow - he is one of a gang of amazing young people who are truly making a difference. Check him out.
There - some hope!