Lead researcher Dr Sophie Lund Rasmussen told CBS News, “Up to 75% of hedgehogs have disappeared from the rural areas.”
Researchers are working on offsetting some dangers posed to hedgehogs that are affecting the species' numbers.
Researchers at the University of Oxford in England are testing how dangerous robotic lawn mowers are to the hedgehog population.
“Up to 75% of hedgehogs have disappeared from the rural areas," lead researcher Dr. Sophie Lund Rasmussen told CBS News.
Their population is dwindling as they lose their habitat and amid the many dangers that humans can pose.
Rasmussen and her team created a 3D-printed crash-test dummy for the manufacturers of robotic lawn mowers to use in their testing phase.
Rasmussen believes technology will eventually develop “a robotic lawnmower that recognizes the hedgehog at a distance, so that it never comes into contact with the hedgehog and then changes direction.”
