Do you remember when I wrote to you about the National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme?

More chance to interact over on Substack.

Well we had a meeting yesterday where the wonderful Henrietta gave us an update on how the first year of work has gone …. and also sent a big thank you to all who have helped! 

The project was started in order to get a better idea of how many hedgehogs there actually are … seems like such a basic question but it is very difficult to answer.

I was on TalkTV last week - there had been a headline in some scientific journal like the Daily Star declaring that hedgehogs would become extinct in ten years … I told the interviewer that this was nonsense and he took offence. Things didn’t improve as he refused to listen to my answers and when I pointed out that the photographs the channel was showing to remind people what a hedgehog was were mostly of pet hedgehogs, which are an entirely different species to the ones we were talking about - he declared that I was being pedantic. The whole thing made GB News look respectable … oh, maybe not - very much cut from the same cloth!

Anyway - knowing how many hedgehogs there are is important for conservation work. And the NHMP is a brilliant way of getting the answer. It relies on cameras - trail cameras - set out in a very specific manner at specific sites around the country. 

This is not information coming from the camera in your back garden … this is all very carefully designed to be statically robust. They set 30 cameras up in a 1km2 area for 30 days - and collect the images. The images are then analysed to see who has been walking by - and while this is aimed at hedgehogs, it is good we know all of the species who are there.

As you can imagine, this generates a lot of data … the first year the project got around 2 million images, in 400,000 sequences from 13 sites. (This year they are aiming at 37 sites … that could be around 6 million images!)

This hit the news because they use AI to do the first scan of the pictures … to eliminate empty images and ones where people have triggered the cameras. But this still leaves a lot to be sifted through, and this is where YOU come in … we need your eyes to finish the job. So far 1300 spotters have logged on - and they need more, so please, follow this link and join in … all you  need to do is look at the images and decide what animals are present … don’t worry - each image gets seen by around three people - so you are all checking you have got it right!

Here is the video guide to the process … narrated by yours truly …

If you want to hear me in person - and are anywhere near Bath on Saturday 8th June - I am being interviewed about my new book for the Festival of Nature.

And you can still listen to my contribution to Start the Week from Monday. If (big if) this programme makes it onto Pick of the Week - and they include my mention of the hedgehog called Nigel - that will be his second appearance on the show! My first ever radio I made back in 1993 involved me talking about him!

And finally, finally - the Shepreth Wildlife Conservation Charity, of which I am a patron, is having a fundraising ball at the beautiful Kings College in Cambridge in December … if you are rich and would like to help a worth cause while being fed and wined … and having me as the Master of Ceremonies … here is the link to the tickets!

Photo from the amazing Nick Upton - this link takes you to information on how he manages to get such great photos!