Hedgehogs listed as ‘near threatened’ as population dwindles

CALI, Colombia: The Western European hedgehog -- the prickly, nocturnal critter people love to encounter in the garden -- is in decline, mowed down by cars as its shrinking habitat forces it to move ever closer to humans.

An updated Red List of Threatened Species published on Monday at the UN´s COP16 biodiversity summit in Cali, Colombia, downgraded the hedgehog´s status from “least concern” to “near threatened.”

The next level on the list kept by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), is “vulnerable,” then “endangered.” The European hedgehog, expert Sophie Rasmussen told AFP, “is very close to being ´vulnerable,´ and it will likely go into that category the next time we evaluate it.” Numbers of the tiny mammal have plunged by more than half its host countries including Britain, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Belgium, the Netherlands, Germany and Austria.

The estimated decline was between 35 and 40 percent of populations measured in Britain, Sweden and Norway in the last decade or so, said Rasmussen, a researcher with the University of Oxford´s Wildlife Conservation Research Unit.

In the Netherlands, it is already considered endangered. The main killer of hedgehogs is cars -- which the animals encounter more and more as they lose their natural habitat to human expansion.