Wildlife enthusiasts volunteered to help a local conservation group monitor one of the more secretive animals on the island.

More than 20 people attended a training workshop in Ramsey and offered their help to the Manx Wildlife Trust to keep an eye on the hedgehog population in the Isle of Man.

The trust organised a session to show people how to set up a hedgehog tunnel, which will help the trust build a picture of the areas where hedgehogs live and give them a good idea on how healthy the population is.

The workshop took place at the Old Courthouse building, in Ramsey, where the wildlife trust’s ’Wilder Futures’ exhibition is on display.

Vera Barber, who takes in and nurses rescued and injured hedgehogs, also took along four hedgehogs to show to the group.

Dawn Dickens, the education officer and wildlife watch coordinator with the trust, organised the workshop, and said it was encouraging to see how many people are interested in monitoring the local environment.

’It’s great that we have had this happy band of people come along who want to help us find out how many hedgehogs we have on the Isle of Man,’ said Dawn. ’Hope fully, with their help, we can find out more about what is happening to our hedgehog population.

’It shows that people are getting into the idea that they can all play a role in wildlife monitoring and become citizen scientists.

’The tunnels that we supplied to people today can be set up in people’s gardens and baited with special hedgehog food.

’They are fitted with carbon ink pads, and when the hedgehogs go into the tunnels to get the food they leave a trail of little black footprints all over pieces of paper.

’From something as simple as that we can tell if there are hedgehogs present in an area or not.

’We can’t say how many hedgehogs there are but we can say if they are juveniles or adults. One of the biggest things we get from the survey is that we have to carry it on year after year, so we can building up a better picture of the overall trend of what is going on in general with the hedgehog population here.’

Among the groups of people who volunteered to set up a tunnel was Isobel Clark, who will use the exercise as part of her Duke of Edinburgh award project.

Others, such as Catherine Briggs, who lives in Colby, were just happy to set up a tunnel at the bottom of the garden and offer their help.

’I think hedgehogs are amazing little animals and I want to help conserve them as best as I can,’ Catherine told the Manx Independent.

’We do have a lot of hedgehogs who come into our garden and if there is anything we can do to help the hedgehog population, then we are only too happy to take part.’

For more information on the hedgehog survey go to manxwt.org.uk