Yate hedgehog rescue appealing for foster carers

Three-legged hedgehog Kwazi is one of the lucky few to already have a foster home

A sanctuary is calling for a host of new hedgehog fosterers following an influx of injured animals.

Yvonne Cox, who founded the Hedgehog Rescue centre in South Gloucestershire, says she has been inundated with animals so badly hurt they are unable to be released back into the wild.

The team are looking for volunteers to care for the animals and give them a safe space to live.

They are looking for people with walled gardens and plenty of shrubs.

Fosterer Tunde Knott volunteered her garden in Stoke Gifford to three-legged Kwazi and Lady, who is missing her toes.

She said: "We have to keep in mind they are wild animals so we have to just leave them be."

Ms Knott said any fosterers would just need to leave out "a little extra food" and water.

She added: "It's not a lot of work at all and it's so rewarding."

Caring for hedgehogs:

• Make a small CD-sized hole in the bottom of the fence so hedgehogs can pass through gardens.

• Make your pond safe with a ramp.

• Get rid of netting and litter.

• Stop using chemicals in your garden.

• Leave out water and tinned dog or cat food but never feed them milk or bread.

• Leave areas of the garden wild.

Hedgehogs have been on the decline in recent years with the population now classified as "vulnerable to extinction".

Numbers have dropped from about 30 million in the 1950s to about a million now.

Ms Cox, who founded the rescue, said walled gardens made the perfect hedgehog home.

Yvonne Cox founded the hedgehog rescue hospital in Yate in 1999 to look after injured hedgehogs

She said: "The garden has to be right for the hedgehogs, so no pesticides, some cover or shrubbery some planting so some natural foraging for the hedgehogs some natural places for them to nest but they can also provide a hedgehog house."