Safe Strimming Campaign

We are delighted to announce that the National Lottery Community Fund, Monday Charitable Trust, Northern Trains and private funders, have come together to support our first ever Safe Strimming campaign.

This 12-month project, starting now and culminating in community activity in 2027, works to help slow the demise of one of the UK’s most threatened creatures - hedgehogs. Now "vulnerable to extinction", rural hedgehog populations have fallen catastrophically, by almost 75% since 2000.

Penny Hunt, Co-founder of Yorkshire Dales Wildlife Rescue, who is leading the campaign, says: "Like other rescues across the country, we receive many hedgehogs every year with horrific injuries caused by strimmers. Some patients come to us in terrible conditions, in excrutiating pain. Some we can nurse back to health, but most will not make it. Strimming is a major cause of human-inflicted death in hedgehogs, and it really doesn't need to be this way. Through this campaign, we'd like to inspire a change in people’s behaviour and practices both locally and nationally. Our campaign will help educate, inform and bring together communities and companies in support of this special creature.

"The first phase of our campaign will focus on research and outreach," adds Penny. "We are about to enter the busiest time of the year for strimming, so we will use all the information we gather this summer to inform our community and online activities next spring. We want to ensure that we develop resources and information that is not only used locally, for this campaign, but can be shared for use by others. This is not a local issue - it is regional and national, so if we can help minimise hedgehog deaths caused by strimming, we will have achieved our objective."

Yorkshire Dales Wildlife Rescue wants to thank the National Lottery Community Fund, Monday Charitable Trust, Northern Trains and other private funders for their support. Without them, this project would not be possible.

If you are a Yorkshire Dales' company working with, or selling strimmers, and are interested in collaborating on this project, please get in touch by emailing hello@yorkshiredaleswildliferescue.com

If you live in a Dales community and would also like to hear more about our education workshops, when they are available, please also get in touch by email.