The Mammal Society Footprint Tunnel
As part of the funding towards our project provided by Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Biodiversity Partnership we have agreed to support their research through the use of footprint traps to survey existing hedgehog activity. The footprint tunnels we are using have been purchased from Wildcare who in turn have teamed up with The Mammal Society to distribute this product.
The tunnels track footprints of small to medium mammals. The tunnels are placed along hedgerows or other edge habitat overnight, and baited Footprint tunnels are a new, non-invasive tool to look for the presence of mammals in a habitat by identifying their footprints. Mammals walk over ink-pads to reach bait inside, and leave their footprints on special paper as they do so. It’s a great survey for the whole family to find out what passes through your garden in the night!
The footprint tunnel was initially developed at Nottingham Trent University in an attempt to replace spotlight transect surveys, which weren’t very effective at detecting hegdehogs. The Mammal Society ran trials, which found the tunnels to be statistically more effective at detecting hedgehogs, a difficult species to survey for.
We have ten of these tunnels and if you are aware of hedgehog activity and/or want to have one of these on loan to assist with the survey then please email admin@glatton-hogblog.uk
You can see where the footprint tunnels have been deployed on our HogMap, and look for the footprint icon: 
Please note that the use of this equipment is for residents of Glatton Parish only.