No wild animal is closer to the hearts of the British than the hedgehog. In poll after poll, it has been voted our favourite mammal. This is hardly surprising. Hedgehogs naturally inspire affection. Mrs Tiggy-Winkle, the companionable washerwoman created by Beatrix Potter, is only the most celebrated of a whole host of them who trot and snuffle through our national imagination. They are familiar to us in a way that few other wild creatures are. They can be met in fields and gardens, in hedgerows and parks. To see one is to feel the tug of a fascination with the natural world as a whole. In the words of Hugh Warwick, the naturalist who serves hedgehogs as their great contemporary champion: ‘These are precious creatures to be treated with great respect.’
Over recent decades, however, we have not been treating them with great respect.
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