Scientists predict hedgehogs could be extinct in the UK by 2025. Here are some tips on making your garden hedgehog-friendly

Hedgehogs are in trouble – and things are about to get a lot worse. Their numbers are dropping like a stone, and according to some scientists, at the current rate of decline they will have gone extinct in Britain by 2025. And tonight, in the UK at least, they run the risk of being roasted alive in a bonfire.

Guy Fawkes night is when hedgehog-lovers pray for rain. For this is exactly the time of year that your local neighbourhood hedgehog is looking for a nice, warm place, where it can settle down for its winter hibernation. So when it comes across a pile of logs, it is quick to take advantage. The only trouble is, on 5 November or thereabouts, the pile of logs will soon be set alight to commemorate the foiling of the gunpowder plot.

The wildlife expert Terry Nutkins – he of Animal Magic and Really Wild Show fame – has some sage advice for bonfire-builders. He suggests that instead of making their bonfire several weeks ahead, they wait until a few hours before the actual event, and then put the logs into place. Delaying the bonfire's construction should help save toads and frogs, as well as hedgehogs.

Delaying your bonfire isn't the only way to help hedgehogs. Providing food will help them build up their weight before hibernation, but unfortunately the bread and milk we often put out for these prickly visitors gives them indigestion and diarrhoea. Cat food – the nearest substitute for their natural diet of beetles, caterpillars and worms – is much more palatable. For some reason, they prefer the chicken variety.

And if you really want to help them, make your garden hedgehog-friendly by avoiding pesticides and slug pellets, letting the grass grow long, and making holes in your fence so they can wander into your neighbours' gardens.

• Stephen Moss is the author of The Bumper Book of Nature