Hedgehog Bronze Award for our Campuses

February 23, 2021

We’re celebrating Penryn and Falmouth campuses achieving the bronze award with the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS) Hedgehog Friendly Campus program.

The Hedgehog Friendly Campus project is a UK-wide initiative which aims to turn university campuses into places where hedgehogs can thrive.

Oliver Milliner is Head of Sustainability for FX Plus, the organisation that looks after services shared between Falmouth University and the University of Exeter at Falmouth and Penryn campuses.

He said: “We’re really pleased to win this bronze award, particularly since we have been working to achieve this through a year of Covid-19 restrictions. We hope to move up to silver or even gold next year.”

“Staff and students have an opportunity to play an active role in what we do so if any of you are interested, please contact me at sustainability@fxplus.ac.uk – everyone’s welcome!”

To earn the bronze award, the FX Plus Sustainability and Grounds teams worked together on a series of initiatives that help to protect and support hedgehog life on campus. Some of these include:  

• Running training sessions for the grounds team and staff on how to feed and support hedgehogs as well as what to do if we ever find an injured hedgehog on campus.
• Putting up signage and stickers on potentially harmful grounds equipment and information around campus to ensure we check for hedgehogs before trimming bushes etc.
• Leaving areas across campus for wildflower and growth – hedgehogs love these as they can hide there!
• Running awareness and information events and seminars for staff and students.
• Running surveys on campus to assess where hedgehogs are mainly located. This involves setting up small shelters with ink by the entrance to detect hedgehog footprints.

Click this link for more information about the BHPS

To achieve silver, teams need to complete at least seven activities from the BHPS toolkit. Silver focuses much more on putting knowledge of hedgehogs and how to help them into practice on campus. To achieve Gold, teams need to focus on actions that leave a legacy for hedgehogs on campus – real, long-lasting impacts.