University wins bronze award
for making campuses
hedgehog friendly

Last autumn we set out with the goal of winning bronze accreditation for making our University campuses a happier home for our resident hedgehogs. We are pleased to say that we achieved this goal. Here's how we did it: 

• A Hedgehog Friendly Campus group was created, and meetings were held to start planning
• We created a Twitter account @HedgehogsDerby
• Campaigns on Twitter were undertaken to increase awareness about issues affecting hedgehogs, e.g. we discussed the danger of garden pesticides
• The University’s ground team as well as staff and students learned what to do if they find a sick, injured or orphaned hedgehog. This was an online event presented by Jo Wilkinson from Hedgehog Friendly Campus – thank you Jo!
• A funding page was created to raise money for the British Hedgehog Preservation Society 
• Last year in May we virtually celebrated Hedgehog Awareness Week by, amongst other things, showing you how to make hedgehog-inspired biscuits and cakes
• We organised a virtual launch event where we had a talk from Debbie Alston, a Derbyshire mammal expert, informing us about hedgehogs. And also introduced ourselves and what we’ve done and what we want to achieve
• Strimmer stickers, reminding users to check the area for hedgehogs before strimming the grass, have been attached to equipment used by the staff at the University
• We joined the “lockdown hedgehog friendly litter pick challenge” and picked a lot of litter to improve the safety for hedgehogs as well as other wildlife
• We also created a webpage on the University's website to inform people on what we do but also to keep people updated on future events and progress
• Hannah Lockwood, one of Derby University’s PhD Students, created merchandise and shared it through social media to fundraise money for the Hedgehog Preservation Society

Buy @HedgehogsDerby merchandise

We are now very much looking forward to reaching the next level, silver accreditation! This includes work on campus such as creating hedgehog highways and planting appropriate wildflower in hedgehog-accessible areas.

Keep an eye on our Twitter page and this website for more news. And please don't hesitate to get in touch with us if you'd like to get involved.