The number of hedgehogs has plummeted in the UK in the last nine years, but one County Durham woman is doing everything she can to protect the prickly characters.
Jacqui Clarke, 50, runs the Dipton Hedgehog Hotel rescue and rehabilitation centre, near Consett.
Registered with the British Hedgehog Preservation Society (BHPS), Jacqui is the only hedgehog carer in the area with basic first aid care.
Members of the public handed in the injured creatures and Jacqui looks after them, with the hope of releasing them back to the wild.
At anyone time, there can be as many as 20 hedgehogs staying with Jacqui, who feeds them and gives them medication.
She said: "I work closely with a network of hedgehog carers in Durham and the surrounding areas and between us we save hundreds of hedgehogs each year.
"We take our advice from the BHPS and the Vale Wildlife Hospital as well as working closely with veterinary practices up and down the country.
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"We get quite a lot of juveniles come in over the winter.
"The maximum I have had is 20 before Christmas, which I looked after by myself. It is a big commitment as you have to feed them, give them medication, clean them out.
"I just released 13 two weeks ago. I had two hedgehogs within the space of 30 mintues. One I took to the vet and found it was in a really bad condition, with a broken leg and bowel, it had to be put to sleep."
At the moment Jacqui is looking after a hedgehog that was starving and suffering from ringworm.
She said: "This little one I found is severely starved so can't get in any food. She has ring worm and is underweight. She is getting treatment for ring worm."
Jacqui says hedgehogs with life threatening injuries are regularly admitted, with the most common cause of injuries from road traffic collisions, dog attacks or gardening injuries caused by strimmers and mowers.
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She said: "They get horrific injuries caused by strimmers in the garden.
"We are asking people to be aware when they are strimming their garden, look in hedge rows, do a little check for these guys.
"We get a lot in with strimmer and mower injuries. Sadly, we are seeing a great deal of them coming in and we are trying to do all we can."
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Numbers have halved since 2000, with just a million of the prickly creatures believed to be roaming the wild - down from the 30 million estimated to be living in the 1950s.
In a bid to stop numbers declining further, Jacqui is appealing for people to make their gardens hedgehog friendly.
"We are asking people to cut CD sized holes in their garden to let them come in and out," she said.
This allows the hedgehogs to roam between gardens, with a single hedgehog travelling up to 1-2km a night searching for food.
Jacqui said: "We just wanted people to keep an eye out for them.
"If you could supplement feed them that would be amazing - dry cat or dog biscuits. You could put out some wet dog or cat food as well.
"Hopefully we can get these little spiky creatures numbers back up."
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