Project HEDGE
Hedgehog Electronic Data Gathering & Evaluation
We are very grateful to The British Hedgehog Preservation Society for supporting our innovative passive tracking project for released hedgehogs, a system that we have been developing for the last three years.
What if we knew what released hedgehogs were up to?
How far they were travelling?
How long they were living?
We have created a long-term cost-effective way to monitor our hedgehog casualties, without disturbing them! Project HEDGE uses tiny RFID microchips, just like the ones used to ID cats and dogs. All rehabilitated hedgehogs from the rescue are microchipped just before they are released back into the wild.
The project consists of twenty monitoring stations to be deployed around Otley. The final prototype is in testing, followed by twelve months of surveillance. The University of Leeds, who have worked with us throughout the project, will analyse this data and our patient records, looking at post hedgehog behaviour and population dynamics, evaluating the success of rehabilitated hedgeh
Each internet-linked monitoring station support feeds our local prickly friends and includes a small camera to capture a video of the visitor.
Our current focus is on deployment but we will in time have a public interface that allows you to follow who we have spotted and where, and of course their back story.
Please follow Project HEDGE on social media.
If you would like to sponsor a monitoring station please send us an email for more information. pricklypigs@outlook.com
