Wits student asks public for help in hedgehog count

A Wits University student leading a "citizen science" survey to determine how many hedgehogs remain in the wild has asked people to report sightings to her, according to a report.

The Saturday Star newspaper said Masters in Zoology student Jessica Artingstall's project called "I found a hedgehog" needs sightings even as old as 100 years, and their GPS co-ordinates so that she can trace the nocturnal creatures and document their encounter patterns with humans.

So far sightings near Johannesburg have been reported from Alberton to Glenfairness and Krugersdorp.

Her aim is to investigate how the distribution of hedgehogs, ranked locally as near-threatened, has changed over the past century.

"Has it shrunk, got larger or stayed the same?" she wondered.

Numbers plummeted in the UK by more than a third between 2003 and 2012 mainly due to habitat loss and road collisions.

She said some are shy and curl into a ball, while others move quickly.

Send the date, location and details of the habitats of your hedgehog sighting to ifoundahedgehog@gmail.com