Hedgehog records 2005-2006: Hogwatch and Rural Landowner surveys

People's Trust for Endangered Species

Description

Hedgehog records from the UK-wide Hogwatch and Rural Landowner surveys, which were carried out in 2005-2006. These were jointly funded by the People's Trust for Endangered Species (PTES) and British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) and run in collaboration with Royal Holloway, University of London.

Geographic Description

UK-wide. As the majority of the dataset was generated by volunteers and hedgehogs are most commonly observed in people's gardens or on roads the occurrence of records is likely to be biased towards populated areas. Most data were submitted with a postocde as the location, which were then converted to British National Grid format. As such data have been submitted at 1km resolution as greater accuracy cannot be assured.

Data quality

Records are submitted voluntarily by members of the public with a wide range of expertise. Sightings were not verified although the risk of misidentification is low for this species. The dataset should not be regarded as having a comprehensive geographical coverage, record distribution is likely to be biased towards populated areas. The dataset has been checked using the NBN record cleaner and as a result erroneous grid references were corrected or removed.

Methods

Data were captured mainly via a public-participation survey. Volunteers submitted records of any hedgehog sightings from the previous year (dead or alive) using a standard form. Some additional records were added via a targetted landowner survey, again using a standard form and asking about sightings within the past year. As the hedgehog is an easily identified species records were only excluded if the location details were not clear or obviously incorrect.

Citation

People's Trust for Endangered Species ([Insert download year]). Hedgehog records 2005-2006: Hogwatch and Rural Landowner surveys. Occurrence dataset on the NBN Atlas

Rights

CC-BY-NC

Digitised records