Biodiversity On Campus

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Efforts are ongoing to make the Easter Bush Campus a place where hedgehogs can thrive. As part of the University’s work towards developing Hedgehog Friendly Campuses, we are seeking to ensure the needs of hedgehogs and the ecosystem that supports them are met. This includes ensuring they are able to safely find food and shelter, are protected from human threats and are able to sustain a healthy breeding population.

As part of this work, surveys conducted by staff and students have demonstrated the presence of hedgehog activity on the Campus. This work is undertaken using temporary tunnels and cameras to evidence their night time activities.

In July 2019, a half day of training in survey techniques saw participants come together from across the Easter Bush Campus, including staff and students to construct ten hedgehog survey tunnels, placing them at strategic points across the campus. The tunnels have since been used on an annual basis and continue to return hog prints as well as prints from other small mammals. Camera traps have also been set up in the locations of the hog prints to further monitor hedgehog activity.

In 2022, the University of Edinburgh received Gold Accreditation as a Hedgehog-Friendly Campus, building on earlier work by the Biodiversity Working Group to attain Bronze and Silver awards. This work is part of a national Hedgehog Friendly Campus campaign, supported by the British Hedgehog Preservation Society. The University is now working towards the Platinum Award and has developed an exciting project seeking to improve the health of hedgerows on campus.

The Hedgerows for Hedgehogs project builds on research conducted by Dr Emily Norris as part of her MVetSci in Conservation Medicine. This project was supervised by Dr Glen Cousquer and Dr Peter Lurz. It included historical mapping of the campus, looking at locations of boundaries and wooded areas, and the impact of building developments on campus. A selection of boundaries were then surveyed to assess their health as wildlife corridors. Some of these boundaries proved to be hedgerows, others were fence lines. The health of the hedgerows was assessed and many were found to be impermeable to wildlife, particularly hedgehogs. A part time staff position was subsequently created to survey all the hedgerows on campus and to address the various concerns about their potential to serve as wildlife corridors and support hedgehogs.

Links:

https://www.research.ed.ac.uk/en/publications/hedgerows-for-hedgehogs-and-ecological-health-an-assessment-of-ea

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In 2020, as part of work undertaken for the Bronze and Silver Hedgehog Friendly Campus Awards, we established a dedicated litter picking station on campus.

The station was constructed from recycled wooden pallets and installed beside the bike shed in the main vet school car park. The litter picking station allows staff and students to pick up equipment including graspers (litter pickers) when heading out for a walk on campus. This allows litter thrown from cars, blown onto campus or otherwise strewn to be safely collected and disposed of. This activity helps eliminate potential threats (including from broken glass and from plastic pollution) to wildlife and other visitors. It also helps to maintain the campus as a clean space which is more likely to dissuade littering.

This activity is also be beneficial for maintaining good mental health, encouraging staff and students to take breaks, to get outside in the fresh air and gives colleagues the chance to meet other people. This opportunity to care for our living environment helps to develop a campus community spirit and a care ethic.

The station continues to support regular campus litter picks and can inspire teams to organise official litter picking events as part of the University’s commitment to supporting volunteering in the community.

In 2024, the Big Dig Team are organising events on campus that will see the removal and collection of tree collars from historical tree planting initiatives. This builds on the successful recent tree planting initiatives organised by the Active Lives Team.

In 2021, students secured two Student Experience Grants from the University to undertake work in support of the Hedgehog Friendly Campus initiative and to undertake a series of nature connection workshops

As part of the first award, a £2,000 grant was secured that allowed a collection of initiatives to be pursued specifically with a view to implementing changes that would benefit hedgehogs and other wildlife. This included the planning and construction of hedgehog homes and log piles, the provision of hedgehog highways, the purchase and installation of road signs to warn drivers of hedgehog activity and work to increase wildflower coverage.

The second award allowed twelve students to be taken on an immersive seasonal experiential nature-connection journey over a twelve month period. This initiative earnt the proposer, Dr Paul Gogerty, the RCVS Student Community Award in 2022, in recognition of his contributions to sustainability and the student experience.

It is hoped that more students will come forward to undertake future projects and build on these two initiatives.

As part of the University’s commitment to addressing the nature emergency, we are encouraging staff and students to help with survey work so that we can develop greater awareness of the wildlife species who call our campus home.

The University is promoting the use of i-Naturalist as a way of recording species seen on campus and this means we now have a dedicated map where sightings can be viewed.

https://www.inaturalist.org/projects/university-of-edinburgh-species-at-easter-bush-campus

Easter Bush Campus is also participating in the Scottish Raptor Patch Scheme, which focuses on the monitoring of the four common birds of prey native to Scotland. These are the kestrel, sparrowhawk, buzzard and raven. We have established that kestrel, sparrowhawk and buzzard are all breeding on our campus and have undertaken training to allow students to contribute to the monitoring of breeding success for these little studied species.

Volunteers who take part in the scheme receive training on the best practice survey methods and the Health and Safety considerations involved. The survey work focuses efforts on confirming nesting and whether chicks successfully fledge. Most monitoring work takes place during the breeding season from February to the end of August and volunteers are encouraged to monitor their patch at least once a month. By repeating this work year after year throughout Scotland, it is possible to build up a picture of how populations of birds of prey are changing through time. Students also get to learn survey skills.

Dr Lottie Gaunt, has also undertaken badger sett survey work with the support of Scottish Badgers, ensuring that the badger setts we have on campus are accurately logged on the data base and receive the protection they are due. This work was undertaken as part of Lottie’s dissertation on the MVetSci in Conservation Medicine programme.

Other members of the campus community have been actively reporting road casualty sightings of species including hedgehogs and badgers, to help develop our understanding of the impact human road systems have on wildlife.

Students at the Easter Bush Campus have built their skills in nature awareness, wildlife tracking and conservation at a series of weekend courses.

The courses were delivered by renowned environmental educator Dan Puplett with the support of the School’s own professional wilderness guide Dr Glen Cousquer.

Participants learnt how to be more mindful of the wider ecosystem and of the biodiversity on campus as well as how to identify wildlife tracks, signs and bird calls, to set up camera traps, and to map existing species.

The courses complement other campus initiatives, such as tree planting and monitoring of hedgehogs and raptors.

Check out some of the wildlife tracking videos recorded by the participants below!

Wildlife Tracking at the Easter Bush Campus