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About us
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Who we are
Ealing Hedgehog Friends was founded in 2023, and since then has answered almost 300 help requests.
We are solely run by volunteers and rely on donations. We don't have a central location that could serve as a hedgehog hospital, but our volunteers care for our hedgehogs in a spare room in their homes. This takes a lot of coordination, but we have been able to manage so far.
Some of our leaders have been trained by Vale wildlife hospital, and we have created our own training programmes that reflect our specific rescue process and give volunteers hands-on experience in areas such as fostering, examination, first aid, fluid injection, and hand-feeding of hoglets. So far we have trained about 80 volunteers, and about half of them are currently active as rescue volunteers. Other volunteers act as drivers or help with our education projects and events.
Our hands-on rescue area is Ealing (and areas just outside the borders, such as parts of Hounslow and Middlesex).
We give advice to people further away and link them to local rescues - our furthest away inquiry came from Liverpool!
We are solely run by volunteers and rely on donations. We don't have a central location that could serve as a hedgehog hospital, but our volunteers care for our hedgehogs in a spare room in their homes. This takes a lot of coordination, but we have been able to manage so far.
Some of our leaders have been trained by Vale wildlife hospital, and we have created our own training programmes that reflect our specific rescue process and give volunteers hands-on experience in areas such as fostering, examination, first aid, fluid injection, and hand-feeding of hoglets. So far we have trained about 80 volunteers, and about half of them are currently active as rescue volunteers. Other volunteers act as drivers or help with our education projects and events.
Our hands-on rescue area is Ealing (and areas just outside the borders, such as parts of Hounslow and Middlesex).
We give advice to people further away and link them to local rescues - our furthest away inquiry came from Liverpool!
How we work
We are set up as a Community Organisation, working with a board, an officer team and a solid governance process.
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The board:
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Our rescue process
Our strategic foundation
Mission
We contribute to hedgehog protection in Ealing, and by doing so, counteract the decline of hedgehogs, which in 2020 were put on the International Union for Conversation of Nature (IUCN) Red List as “vulnerable to extinction” in Great Britain.
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Goals
1. To provide care for injured, sick, malnourished, and orphaned hedgehogs found in and around Ealing, with the purpose of releasing them back into the wild where they were found whenever possible.
2. To prevent injuries, illness and orphaning of hedgehogs by educating the public about:
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Values
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A bit of history
2023 - the beginnings
Until 2022, sick or injured Ealing hedgehogs - if they were lucky enough to be found - would only get help after an hour's car drive: Wildlife Aid Leatherhead and Tiggywinkles in Oxfordshire were the closest clinics. Pumpkins Wildlife hospital was just in the process of setting up. All of these hospitals were frequently overloaded and often full.
In this situation Andrea decided that we needed a local hedgehog rescue. A call-out in the local Facebook groups led to two initial meetings in early 2023 - in the very supportive Viaduct Pub: sharing info about hedgehogs in Ealing and brainstorming about how to set up a rescue. This engaged an initial group of volunteers to take on officer roles. On 1st March 2023, Ealing Hedgehog Friends was officially founded, and in June 2023 our help email went live.
We then provided two rounds of training for local volunteers, which left us with 20 active rescue volunteers.
In this situation Andrea decided that we needed a local hedgehog rescue. A call-out in the local Facebook groups led to two initial meetings in early 2023 - in the very supportive Viaduct Pub: sharing info about hedgehogs in Ealing and brainstorming about how to set up a rescue. This engaged an initial group of volunteers to take on officer roles. On 1st March 2023, Ealing Hedgehog Friends was officially founded, and in June 2023 our help email went live.
We then provided two rounds of training for local volunteers, which left us with 20 active rescue volunteers.
2024 - further skill development
As we had struggled finding a local vet we were excited to receive support from Pumpkin's wildlife hospital, where we got further training in important first aid skills (such as fluid injection for dehydrated hedgehogs). We also learned how to hand feed hoglets!
2025 - initial outreach projects
Up to now we did not really have time to work on the second part of our mission: education and injury prevention. But as our volunteer team grew, we were able to intensify our outreach projects. We updated our information fliers, took part in several events, started offering public presentations and working with Boston Manor Park for hedgehog friendly habitats.
2026 - our networking year
In April 2026 we reached a huge milestone: we had answered 250 help requests. The workload intensified with the May heatwaves: in the first few months of Spring, we had already received 80 requests for help!
In these busy days, we were excited to hear that the Greenwood vets in Ruislip were offering their help. We still need Pumpkin's wildlife hospital for complex cases that call for surgery or hospitalisation, but having our own local vet is a huge relief and takes pressure away from the busy Pumpkin's team.
We have also intensified our outreach projects, providing presentations to local WI and U3A groups, giving talks at events, and working more with allotments and schools to make their grounds more hedgehog safe. The park poster project 'Out in the day is not OK' was a huge success, with many of our volunteers hanging posters in local parks and members of the public reacting to them.
This year also brought a new collaboration with Ealing Wildlife group. Joining forces, we are now offering Garden Coaching services to local residents who would like to make their gardens more hedgehog friendly. An intial team of 20 coaches has been trained and is ready to go!
This Summer, we had our first suspicion of an Arterivirus case - a new virus that is spreading fast among UK-hedgehogs. In response to this threat, we are aiming to further our skills, connecting to other carers and scientists for hedgehogs and creating a library with all the new knowledge we need.
In these busy days, we were excited to hear that the Greenwood vets in Ruislip were offering their help. We still need Pumpkin's wildlife hospital for complex cases that call for surgery or hospitalisation, but having our own local vet is a huge relief and takes pressure away from the busy Pumpkin's team.
We have also intensified our outreach projects, providing presentations to local WI and U3A groups, giving talks at events, and working more with allotments and schools to make their grounds more hedgehog safe. The park poster project 'Out in the day is not OK' was a huge success, with many of our volunteers hanging posters in local parks and members of the public reacting to them.
This year also brought a new collaboration with Ealing Wildlife group. Joining forces, we are now offering Garden Coaching services to local residents who would like to make their gardens more hedgehog friendly. An intial team of 20 coaches has been trained and is ready to go!
This Summer, we had our first suspicion of an Arterivirus case - a new virus that is spreading fast among UK-hedgehogs. In response to this threat, we are aiming to further our skills, connecting to other carers and scientists for hedgehogs and creating a library with all the new knowledge we need.