People are being urged to record hedgehog sightings to help save them.

The Wildlife Trust for Lancashire, Manchester, and North Merseyside is asking people to record hedgehog sightings to "Help a Hog" this autumn.

Hedgehog populations have been declining in the UK, but gardens could provide a refuge.

Rural populations of hedgehogs have declined by 30 to 75 per cent in different areas, but the urban hedgehog population is showing signs of stabilising.

By recording where you have, or even where you haven’t, seen a hedgehog, people can help Lancashire Wildlife Trust to build up a fuller picture of how the population is faring across the region.

If you haven’t seen a hedgehog so far this year where you would usually see one, this is a hedgehog 'not-spot' and is just as informative to track their behaviours and habitat changes as reported 'hot spots'.

The trust received 796 responses in total last year, reporting sightings of 1,233 hedgehogs.

The sighting numbers overall were down 33 per cent from 1,850 hedgehogs in 2022.

With gardens becoming increasingly more important as habitats for hedgehogs in the UK, gathering this information will allow the trust to understand where conservation work needs to be targeted and raise awareness of what we can all do to aid their population recovery.

Hedgehogs can travel more than one mile each night looking for food and mates, and with the decline in hedgerows and their natural food of insects and invertebrates in rural areas, gardens can provide a haven.

There are a few simple steps that everyone can take to help support hedgehogs, and there’s lots of information available in The Wildlife Trust’s free "Help a Hog" guide.

These include making a hedgehog highway, as no one garden is big enough to support a hedgehog, so making small 13 x 13cm holes in the base of fences or walls will allow hedgehogs to travel around safely.

People are also encouraged to leave a wild area, not cut back vegetation over winter, and go chemical free to encourage insects into gardens, which are hedgehogs’ favourite food.

A simple pile of logs in a quiet corner of a garden can make the perfect home for hedgehogs during their daytime naps or to hibernate in.

People are also encouraged to make ponds safe by adding a ramp or pile of stones to ponds to allow easy access for hedgehogs and other garden visitors.

People are also being warned to be careful with bonfires, as a pile of wood makes an inviting home for a hedgehog.

Alan Wright, communications and campaigns manager for the trust, said: "We are asking everyone to go onto our website and fill in our simple ‘Hedgehog Hotspot’ form – and that’s whether you have seen a hedgehog, or if you haven’t.

"It only takes a minute or two and this information will be passed onto our local environmental records centres, allowing us to build up both a regional and national picture of how these beloved garden visitors are doing."