Are you worried about today's date? Maybe you'd like to hide under the covers until tomorrow?
If that's the case then perhaps it's appropriate that today is also World Sleep Day, an annual event intended to celebrate sleep and draw attention to some of the issues related to sleep. It is held on the Friday before the Vernal Equinox each year, which is also around the time you would expect to see hedgehogs beginning to wake up and come out of hibernation. Hedgehog Street estimate that hedgehogs hibernate until some time between March and April but of course this is affected by the weather and our recent warm winters and fluctuating spring weather causes our 'hogs no end of sleep problems with many suffering from disturbed hibernation, waking too early or not going to sleep soon enough and using up their reserves.
Earlier this year our featured charity, The Mammal Society wrote an article all about why we need to talk about hedgehogs highlighting reasons for their decline and introducing some of their current areas of research read this here.
Shortly after their article for CJS Mammal Society released the results of their worrying research on hedgehog mortality on roads. Read this here; there are additional links to further information plus ways you can help.
Hibernation problems are just one of the many things influencing hedgehogs, in September Hedgehog Street explained how the human landscape has influenced hedgehog habitats and how we can help mitigate that impact: Read Thechanging habitats of hedgehogs here.
To see everything we have on hedgehogs, articles, features and citizen science surveys to join click here.