51ºÚÁÏ

A colouring page that I created for my students about the blonde hedgehogs that live on the tiny British Channel Island of Alderney. Used for a discussion about wildlife conservation, environment, adaptation, journeys, habitat, and genetics.

"Alderney’s most famous wildlife is the very unusual ‘Blonde Hedgehogs’ (They are actually leucistic). White hedgehogs are rare in Britain but around 25% of the hedgehogs on Alderney are white.

There appears to be a dominant strain of leucistic hedgehogs on Alderney that produce an exceptionally high percentage of white animals. For some reason, the white hedgehogs don’t carry fleas, and there are no natural predators on the island, so the population is unusually high for such a small area. And being a small island, the strong leucistic gene remains prevalent in the population.

There is a theory that one or more white hedgehogs were released here in the 1960s having been bought from Harrods!".