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British mammals are in imminent danger
One in five of our nearly 60 species of British Mammals are in danger of extinction

Just last month, in this column, I reported on the severe threat to one of our most attractive native mammals — the hedgehog.

Fifty years ago there were 32 million hedgehogs in Britain and about a million motor vehicles. Today we are down to nearly half a million hedgehogs but well over 32 million vehicles squashing hedgehogs on our streets.

This week’s headlines alert us to threats to mammal numbers but before we look at these let us remind ourselves of some basic mammalian numbers.

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