Puffins, owls, bees and hedgehogs chosen for our next banknotes

Our next Bank of England notes will feature four neighbours worth getting to know: the Atlantic puffin, barn owl, buff-tailed bumblebee and European hedgehog.

The animals were chosen after 478,531 people took part in the Bank’s wildlife consultation, its biggest response to a banknote imagery exercise. Experts helped draw up the shortlist, and the public’s choices informed the final selection.

The redesign has a practical purpose: making notes harder to counterfeit and the different values easier to distinguish. The Bank says design, testing and production will take years; which animal gets which denomination is still undecided.

The wildlife connection goes beyond the pictures. Smiley Movement reports that volunteers in Essex have installed more than 300 barn-owl nest boxes and ringed over 470 owls, while habitat loss and fewer nesting places remain problems.

A banknote cannot restore a habitat. But this public choice gives familiar wildlife a lasting place in everyday life, alongside the people already putting up boxes and caring for the places these animals need.

Sources

• Smiley Movement — Puffin, Barn Owl, Bumblebee and Hedgehog Named as Faces of New UK Banknotes
• Bank of England — Bank of England announces the four animals that will feature on our next series of banknotes