Hedgehog highways

Text 1: A hole in every fence, by Helen Okafor

An original contemporary blog.

Last spring our residents’ group set out to link every back garden on Orchard Close with a hedgehog highway: a hole the size of a CD cut at the foot of each fence, so the animals can roam the mile or so they need each night. Our first leaflet asked people to cut the holes themselves, and only four households replied. Several neighbours told us they had no saw, and others worried that a gap would let their dog escape next door. So two volunteers began calling round with a jigsaw and doing the cutting free of charge, and we lined each gap with a wooden frame too narrow for even a small terrier. By October, thirty-one gardens were connected, and a neighbour’s night camera filmed three hedgehogs in a single evening.

Explain two changes the group made so that more neighbours agreed to have a hole in their fence.