Take part in this fantastic competition for Hedgehog Awareness Week

This Hedgehog Awareness Week is all about improving the edges of your garden to invite wildlife to make a home there. 

We want to see what you’ve done in your gardens to give us some inspiration! Either share your videos or pictures on socials and tag us on Instagram and Facebook or email us at hedgehog-friendly@open.ac.uk. You have until the end of this month to enter to win a bundle of hedgehog-themed prizes!

Prizes include a crocheted hoglet from Charon, our Faculty Representative for WELS, A Prickly Affair by Hugh Warwick, a travel mug and a hedgehog highway sign.

If you want some inspiration, we will be sharing some tips and videos on what you can do in your garden over on our social media channels, Instagram and Facebook. You can also check out the British Hedgehog Preservation Society's website for advice.

As every year, the British Hedgehog Preservation Society announced its Hedgehog Awareness Week, running from 4 to 10 May 2025, and the OU Students Association was ready to answer the call!

When people think about environmental protection, they usually imagine things like the ozone hole, ocean acidification or giant pandas, which are major issues, but there are also other problems, less obvious but right under our nose, which would require very little action to see an improvement.

One of these, just outside our front door, in our gardens, is Hedgehog health (and wildlife in general). This year, Hedgehog Awareness Week asks people to ‘Give hedgehogs the edge’ by making the edges of their gardens and green spaces places where wildlife can thrive, trying to encourage a virtuous change in their communities too. Very few things can have as impressive results with as small an effort as making your gardens hedgehog-friendly! The OU Students Association has already prepared plenty of activities for Hedgehog Awareness Week to help you learn more about these little animals and their needs, while having fun at the same time.

On Wednesday 7 May at 6pm, interested students will have the opportunity to hear Holly’s experience volunteering at Emma’s Hedgehog Hospital in Norfolk – she's studying with The Open University too and saving wildlife in the meantime!

The event will take place online, and you can find additional information at the following address: https://www.oustudents.com/ents/event/1821/ where you can also add the event to your calendar.

But it wouldn’t be much of an adventure without an exciting challenge! Having learnt a lot in the first days of the awareness campaign, you are all invited to share videos or photos of your improved garden edges. On your social pages, it will be sufficient to tag us on Instagram and Facebook, or you can choose to email hedgehog-friendly@open.ac.uk.

Joining the challenge, you’ll have the opportunity to win a bundle of hedgehog-themed prizes, so it’s better to start working on your garden improvements as soon as possible, because you’ll have time only until the end of this month to participate! If you don’t know where to start to make a wildlife haven in your garden, you can take a look at the British Hedgehog Preservation Society’s guidelines, available at https://www.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/give-hedgehogs-the-edge-this-hedgehog-awareness-week/.

We can’t wait to see your gardens when you answer the British Hedgehog Preservation Society’s call to action. Some of our Student Hedgehog Ambassadors will choose their favourite entry to win the bundle of hedgehog goodies..

If you need some inspiration, you could take a photo of:

• overgrown grass and mini wildflower meadows
• bug hotels
• log piles
• leaf piles
• compost
• hedgehog houses 
• hedgehog highways (holes in your fence)
• mini ponds or bigger ponds with ramps or escape routes.

In the meantime, you could consider donating to help this charity or get lost in their shop at https://shop.britishhedgehogs.org.uk/. Just so you know, the page overflows with cuteness!

Always remember to log any hedgehogs you are lucky enough to see on the Big Hedgehog Map (https://bighedgehogmap.org/), an amazing resource to understand where and how many hedgehogs there are in our local areas. It only takes a few clicks, but it is a great resource to track hedgehog numbers.