In France, the hedgehog species “will be almost extinct in 2025”. Jean-Xavier Duhart hardly takes gloves in the petition he launched on Change.org website. The animal will have almost disappeared in certain territories and, in others, the numbers will be so reduced that the animal will no longer be able to reproduce, he predicts.
The text was put online in 2016, but this animal enthusiast, behind the site familleherisson.fr, makes it live actively. With some success even, since the petition continues to be covered regularly in the medias and always saves new signatures. Without difficulty, it should pass the milestone of 300,000 signatures, the target and which would make it one of the most signed petitions on change.org.
“It remains a common species in mainland France”
However, “under no circumstances will the hedgehog disappear from France within two years”, assures the biologist Patrice Haffner, head of the “Species” pole in the “Natural heritage” service at the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN). “There remains a common species in mainland France, present almost everywhere on the territory and of which we can say, without being mistaken, that the numbers are counted in the hundreds of thousands”, abounds Florian Kichner, program manager “species” at the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN)-France.
The NGO is known for its “red list”, a global inventory of the conservation status of plant and animal species. “And for a species to appear there as threatened, it needs either low numbers, or a very restricted distribution, or even a very marked decline in the population, lists Florian Kichner. In France, we consider that the hedgehog does not tick any of these boxes to date and that it is not threatened with extinction in the decades to come. »
British sightings as a starting point
But where does Jean-Xavier Duhart get these alarmist projections from? From Britain, he replies. Across the Channel, major participatory science programs, calling on the British to count and report sighted hedgehogs, have been launched since the early 2000s, in particular by foundations such as the People’s Trust for endangered species (PTES) Or British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS). As early as 2013, the first sounded the alarm, particularly in the Guardianestimating less than a million the number of hedgehogs left in Great Britain, when the population was estimated at two million in the mid-1990s and even 36 million in 1950. fall to around 500,000 individuals and the hedgehog is, since 2020, classified on the red list of endangered species of the IUCN in Great Britain », continues Jean-Xavier Duhart.
The author of the petition then extrapolated the British figures to France, considering that much the same thing is happening here. And by extending the curves, he comes to estimate the virtual disappearance of the animal in 2025.
“Not scientifically rigorous”…
The method makes Patrice Haffner wince. “She is not scientific,” he decides. Above all, the biologist from the MNHN returns to the British studies on which Jean-Xavier Duhart relies. “Very well done certainly, but much more careful than the petition suggests”, he specifies. In the 2022 edition of their joint reportthe PTES and BHPS thus only give, for population estimate, that made by the Mammal Society – another British charity – in 2018. That is 879,000 individuals. Immediately, the report states that “there are many uncertainties about this figure”. Nothing surprising reminds Patrice Haffner, “the hedgehog being a nocturnal animal, discreet and occupying a vast territory”.
All the same, by crossing different studies, the PTES and BHPS come to the conclusion of a long decline in the population of hedgehogs in Great Britain. But the two NGOs qualify: “in urban areas, populations now appear stable or even show signs of recovery”, they observe. On the other hand, in rural areas, the hedgehog would have lost “between a third and three quarters of its population”. However, with regional disparities, the eastern half of England being more affected.
Concerns all the same about the hedgehog in France
It is a merit then that can be granted to Jean-Xavier Duhart: That of having drawn attention to the fate of the hedgehog in France. If it will not disappear in 2025, it is very likely that its population will decline here too. We find, in any case, the same pressures on both sides of the Channel. Gilles Benest, President of France Nature Environment Doubs, especially cites the rise of intensive agriculture. “The simplification of landscapes (destruction of hedges) and the massive use of pesticides have depleted the food resources of the hedgehog, a big eater of insects and slugs. »
There are also road collisions again and again. “But precisely, we observe fewer dead hedgehogs on the side of the road than in the past while the car traffic has not decreased in intensity, notes the biologist of the MNHN. So that we can deduce that the animal is also in decline here. »
It’s time to open your eyes
It remains to confirm this intuition with robust data. “Until now, efforts have focused on the species that we knew were the most threatened and much less on the municipalities such as hedgehogs, weasels, badgers…”, concedes Florian Kichner.
Associations are trying to rectify the situation. The League for the Protection of Birds (LPO) thus launched, in 2020, the “hedgehog mission” who invites us to install, five nights in a row, footprint tunnels in our garden or a corner of nature and to pick up the tracks each morning. At the same time, the FNE launched a large census of the hedgehog. Simpler. “As soon as you see a hedgehog, alive or dead, you just have to report it on a online platform and to respond to a quick online survey to clarify the circumstances,” says Gilles Benest. And it’s time to open your eyes as the mammal gradually emerges from hibernation. The FNE has thus received 258 reports (which may correspond to several hedgehogs seen) since the beginning of the year and 5,369 last year. “Within three to four years, we can hope to have enough data to make the first population estimates,” says Gilles Benest. Jean-Xavier Duhart fears for his part that it will then be too late to act.