For the third year in a row, the Allerton Project are taking part in the National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme (NHMP), a pilot project ran by People’s Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS). The project is aiming to understand where and why hedgehogs are struggling by producing robust hedgehog population estimates and comparing regional and habitat differences.
We’ve placed thirty wildlife cameras across the farm for thirty days with the intention of capturing images and monitoring any hedgehog activity. Once collected, AI will be used to filter out undesirables e.g. people, machinery etc., at which point the remaining images will be uploaded to MammalWeb for classification by volunteers. MammalWeb is a “citizen science” online platform used to monitor the distribution and ecology of mammals through public image and video classification from camera traps.
Despite being within their indigenous range, sadly, no hedgehogs have been recorded at Allerton so far in the project. However, we have captured images of a range of other interesting species present on the farm. Follow this link to our Instagram page to see some of the images captured in 2024’s NHMP survey.
The National Hedgehog Monitoring Programme is run by People’s Trust for Endangered Species and The British Hedgehog Preservation Society, in partnership with Nottingham Trent University, Zoological Society of London, London Hogwatch, MammalWeb and Durham University, and co-funded by Natural England.
