Gardens are becoming vital sanctuaries for every kind of wildlife. Birds, insects and small mammals, like hedgehogs, rely on humans as they’ve never done before. Among the reasons are certain farming practices which have emerged over the past 50 or 60 years and damaged the environment that wildlife needs to thrive. Repeated spraying of chemicals can turn farms into lifeless deserts. Also, 200,000 miles of hedges throughout the UK have been grubbed up since the Second World War.

This has had a drastic effect on hedgehogs, those denizens of the hedgerows. Since 1945, it’s estimated that their population has crashed from a healthy 36 million to the point where they’re listed on the UK Biodiversity Action Plan as a priority species alongside the wildcat and red squirrel.

Here in Scotland, the Wildlife Information Centre has been conducting a hedgehog survey in the Lothians and Borders in order to develop a clearer picture of the status of the hedgehog, establishing a baseline so they can monitor what is happening to hedgehogs in the future. And because hedgehogs are killed on the roads, people are being asked to record dead as well as living animals.

Other charities are working to help individual hedgehogs. The Hessilhead Wildlife Rescue near Beith, North Ayrshire, wants to rescue, treat, rehabilitate and release birds and animals back into the wild. With their 20-acre site, they have the facilities and experience to treat every kind of wildlife, including hedgehogs.

Gardeners can help hedgehogs too. It’s important to remember that small gardens collectively offer a large sanctuary for many kinds of wildlife. Garden walls are no impediment to birds and insects, but are impenetrable to hedgehogs. Like every Scot, they want the right to roam, and will travel up to a mile in the course of a night.

You can’t do much if you’ve a stone or brick boundary, apart from removing one brick at ground level. But hedgehogs can pass through a space the width of your hand, so a tiny passage in a fence would do the trick.

Why not provide space for a hedgehog to shelter? It’ll reward you amply by dining on any slugs you may have. A good shelter will be especially important over the next few weeks, when hedgehogs are looking for a place to hibernate. A bit of tangly undergrowth in a corner or behind a shed would suffice, as would a pile of rotting logs. And don’t clear away all your fallen leaves. An overly tidy garden is dull and lifeless.

You’ll also find a dead hedge is ideal for hedgehogs. To make one, drive stout sticks into the ground, forming two rows, 45-60cm apart. Then fill with rough, woody, prickly garden rubbish – it’s all too plentiful just now. Alternatively, make a heap and let it rot down slowly. A dead hedge is a perfect haven for all kinds of birds, insects and small mammals.

Unfortunately a pile of bonfire material is like a giant dead hedge and seems an ideal shelter, so don’t set fire to your Guy Fawkes pyre without rebuilding the heap on fresh ground so you can check there are no hedgehogs or other animals underneath.

Before strimming long grass, walk over the area to disturb any animals hiding there and never poke a strimmer under a bush without first checking for hedgehogs.

Unquestionably the greatest threat to hedgehogs is posed by herbicides, pesticides and slug pellets. Hedgehogs feed on almost anything – slugs, beetles, worms, you name it – so you drive away the hedgehogs when you spray and kill their food. It’s often claimed that it takes huge quantities of slug pellets containing metaldehyde to kill a hedgehog but post-mortems have shown this to be untrue. There is evidence too that these pellets can affect the reproductive ability of hedgehogs. Yet another reason for not using slug pellets.

Visit www.wildlifeinformation.co.uk.