Did you know that hedgehog numbers have declined by at least 30% since 2000? Cardiff Met has joined the national campaign to make universities Hog-Friendly!
In February 2020 we signed up to the Hedgehog Friendly Campus scheme and agreed to aim to make our campuses Hedgehog Friendly. We were awarded the
Bronze accreditation from the Hedgehog Friendly Campus scheme in Jan 2021 and achieved Silver in Jan 2022.
We started by promoting the campaign in Go Green week and saw lots of enthusiasm from our staff and students for the campaign as well as concern upon learning that hedgehog numbers were declining.
Litter Picking
Regular Litter picks are held, as a part of both our Hedgehog Friendly Campus campaign and as a Keep Wales Tidy Hub. An amazing turnout of 18 staff and students collected 18 bags of litter from the local area after the recent flooding. Litter is very dangerous to hedgehogs as they can get caught in it, therefore it is important to us that our campuses and local area are keep tidy.
Hedgehog Awareness Week
For Hedgehog Awareness Week 2021, we aimed to raise awareness of the dangers hedgehogs face and promoted ways that staff, students and the community can assist their local hedgehogs on our social media. A Cardiff Met staff member who volunteers to rescue hedgehogs also wrote a short article on his volunteering for our staff portal, Insite.
As a part of our celebrations, Jo from Hedgehog Friendly Campus held a live online workshop, teaching some of our staff and their families simple survey techniques to survey for hedgehogs in their gardens. It was a great event and some of our staff members got very lucky and had hedgehogs visit their survey tunnels during the following week, proven by the appearance of some hedgehog footprints in the ink!
