WILDLIFE campaigner Angela Squires has launched a fundraising campaign so she can keep helping the thousands of hedgehogs which pass through her hospital every year.

Angela founded Crash Hedgehog Hospital in Poole more than 20 years ago in 1992.

She used to help with a cat charity when some children found an injured hedgehog on a road and took it to her home on Canford Heath.

Angela managed to nurse the animal back to good health and within hardly any time at all, she was inundated by people bringing her sick and orphaned hedgehogs from all over Dorset.

Now 24 years later CRASH has approximately 2,000 hedgehogs passing through the rescue centre each year.

Some may stay for a couple of hours to be assessed for injury and others may require expensive veterinary treatment with a long rehabilitation period before being considered fit enough to be released back into the wild.

According to Angela the charity doesn't make anywhere near enough money to meet the demand for help.

Her latest fundraising campaign focuses on raising money to pay for the surgery needed on injured hedgehogs.

"It cost around £200 per operation. CRASH pays for all the food, medications, needles, syringes and drugs but the huge cost of every operation makes a big hole in our funds, as there can be two or three a week needing amputations," said Angela, 71.

"The surgery is a life saver, as it gives the hedgehogs a second chance at life.

"But if there's not enough money to cover it, the animal has to be put to sleep and this is a heartbreaking decision we never want to make.

"Hedgehogs are a protected species, as they are now in very serious decline, with less than a million left.

"Please help us to help them, by giving a donation to CRASH so we can help these charming little animals to survive."

To donate to gofundme.com/2j7xe9mc.

Or for further information on CRASH go to hedgehogs.org.uk.