In the UK

Dormice are among our most threatened mammals. The ancient woodlands they rely on are shrinking and becoming more isolated as roads and developments carve up the land and traditional hedgerows are lost. We run the national monitoring of dormice and the figures tell us clearly that dormice have declined by a third since 2000.  We’re  responding by reintroducing them to woodlands where they used to exist so that they have a chance to build new populations. And there’s hope – our evidence shows the decline is slowing, so our efforts are making a difference.

Hedgehogs in Britain are declining at the same rate as tigers worldwide. So we’ve created Hedgehog Street – a collaboration between PTES and the British Hedgehog Preservation Society. Thousands of Hedgehog Champions are creating hedgehog-friendly gardens, hibernation sites and natural feeding areas across the UK. We also fund investigative research and practical action so we can help hedgehogs as much as possible.

The spectacular stag beetle is the UK’s largest land beetle. They’re widespread across the south of the UK, but extremely rare or even extinct elsewhere in Britain, and declining across Europe. The biggest threat to stag beetles is the loss of their habitat, so we’re getting as many people as possible to leave stumps in their gardens, or create log piles which are great homes for stags and other insects. We also run the Great Stag Hunt survey and thousands of people every year take part telling us how stag beetles are doing.

The water vole population plummeted by around 90% in just one decade – one of the most rapid and serious declines of any British mammal. Since 1980, we’ve funded over 40 water vole projects. We manage the National Water Voles Monitoring Programme and are studying the effects of waterway maintenance on water voles, as well as mapping their strongholds across the UK.

More UK projects, past and present