Cranborne Chase National Landscape

Help Monitor Hedgehogs in Chalke Valley – Volunteers Wanted!

With Hedgehog numbers in decline, here’s a fantastic chance to get involved in real wildlife conservation supporting the National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme (NHMP) locally in the Chalke Valley.

The NHMP is an exciting new pilot project, that will for the first time produce robust hedgehog population estimates. Where previous large-scale surveys have given information on where hedgehogs are, this new survey will tell us how many there are.  Surveys that only indicate where hedgehogs are present don’t reveal how that population is faring until it has disappeared. Monitoring numbers can give us warning if the population is in trouble.

The monitoring programme is currently looking to assess populations of hedgehogs in countryside locations as urban populations are believed to be more stable and more data is available. There is much less data on countryside populations, so this is a chance to capture some very interesting and crucial data. The survey will involve gaining images of hedgehogs through cameras with infrared motion sensors located across the site.

Training will be given on the day, including an overview of the programme, hedgehog declines and why this survey is important. There will then be a demonstration of how to install and calibrate the cameras at the first camera location. We will then be split into groups of 2 and 3 and install the rest of the cameras across the site. The 1km² survey site area is slightly smaller than the one used last year. There are 30 cameras to install, which will be left for 30 days. At the end of the 30 days, there would be a collection day on which volunteers will go and collect the cameras using maps. A second collection date will be scheduled shortly and an email sent round.

Our monitoring site will be at Manor Farm at Fifield Bavant. The date we have set for this initial session to have training and put the cameras out will be Wed 10th June, meeting at a location near to the site at 10am. No experience is necessary, just an enthusiasm for carrying out survey work. Once parked, there will be a 20-minute walk across fields to the closest part of the survey area.  

There could be the opportunity, once the images have been captured, to assist with “spotting” via an application called Mammal Web. This would involve seeing if anything is showing up in the image and saying what is there and also annotating the images noting depth and speed. This analysis of camera captures will come in waves and so will be done over a long period. There is no expectation for volunteers to have to take part in every element of this, but the opportunity is available should you wish to be involved.

We do hope you will join us in protecting Cranborne Chase’s prickliest residents—one camera at a time! Be part of this exciting project revealing the secret lives of our local hedgehogs.

If you have any questions, please contact Ranger, Melissa by email:- melissahowell@cranbornechase.org.uk