For those of a certain age memories of the industrious little Hedgehog in Beatrix Potter’s Tale of Mrs Tiggywinkle are enduring.
What a charming and unusual mammal the Hedgehog is, but one we could be accused of taking forgranted as it goes about its nocturnal business.

As recently as the 1950’s there was an estimated population of 30 million hedgehogs in Britain. By 1995 this had reduced to 1.5 million and studies carried out between the early 1990’s and 2001 suggest their numbers may have fallen by half as much again.

Hedgehogs are as much at home in urban as they are in rural habitats as long as conditions are favourable for them – gardens and fields with suitable cover and good foraging opportunities. Intensive agriculture, loss of hedgerows, paved and overly tidy gardens and the use of pesticides have had dramatic effects on their numbers.
Added to this tens of thousands are killed by road traffic every year.

Beatrix Potter would be shocked and saddened by the demise of 'dear Mrs Tiggywinkle'.

To help this special animal

please visit
britishhedgehogs.org.uk

Few creatures are as endearing or as evocative of a sunny summer afternoon as Bumblebees with their deep buzzing and clumsy flight. Quite apart from their visual charm these important insects play a crucial role in pollinating not only wild and garden flowers, but many of our most important crops.
For example, the fruit for our favourite jams, namely Strawberry and Raspberry simply would not be available without the help of pollinating Bumblebees. Can we really take them forgranted?

In the last 80 years their populations have declined dramatically and two of their species have become nationally extinct. There are 24 types of Bumblebee in the UK but only 8 are now commonly found in most places. They are in urgent need of our support.

To help our most iconic pollinator

please visit
bumblebeeconservation.org

Butterflies can justifiably claim to be amongst the most beautiful creatures on our planet. Sometimes spectacularly colourful and exotic or carefully camouflaged, they are equally graceful, delicate and beautiful in flight and have captured our admiration for hundreds of years. But, like Bumblebees, and for the same reasons, they are in decline and in urgent need of our help.

During the last 100 years, four species of Butterfly’s and over 60 Moths have become extinct. Of the 56 species of Butterflies remaining in the UK three quarters are in decline as are their night time cousins, the Moths. Their habitat has been destroyed on a huge scale and now changing patterns of climate and weather are having a profound effect on their survival.

When we are charmed by the gentle fluttering of Peacock and Tortoiseshell Butterflies on our summer Buddleias or catch Red Admirals and Commas sipping sugary nectar from the last of our orchard plums, we are reminded of how diminished our environment would be without the presence of these beautiful insects.

To help Butterflies and Moths

please visit
butterfly-conservation.org