3 days ago
A second chance for spiky souls: Inside Italy's hedgehog hospital
An alarm suddenly sounds in the intensive care unit: Cetto, weighing just under 370 grams, is struggling to breathe.
The attending doctor immediately supplies him with oxygen through a tube - but it's not enough. A follow-up injection is needed.
Slowly, Cetto's pulse stabilizes. He curls up again, just like a hedgehog does when it begins to feel safe.
It's a scene that could unfold in any neonatal ward — but this isn't a hospital for humans.
It's a 300-year-old farmhouse in the rolling hills of Italy's Piedmont region, where veterinarian Massimo Vacchetta runs a sanctuary like no other: a dedicated hospital for hedgehogs, complete with an ICU, a retirement home and even a tiny cemetery.
Hedgehogs waking up too early from winter sleep
Vacchetta and his team have treated some 4,000 hedgehogs here. Currently, there are 200 in their care. Most are housed in cages, while critical cases like Cetto are kept in incubators at around 25 degrees Celsius.
The facility also includes an emergency room, a hedgehog-specific operating table and various medical devices, such as blood analysis equipment, lasers, X-rays and ultrasound machines.
A hedgehog rests in the hands of La Ninna Hedgehog Hospital founder Dr Massimo Vacchetta.
Most hedgehogs brought here have been hit by cars, like Cetto, though increasingly they are injured by robotic lawnmowers. Others have ingested poison or swallowed plastic.
Climate change is also becoming a growing problem for these animals, which typically hibernate for several months.
"Because winters are now often too warm, they wake up in the middle of hibernation," Vacchetta explained. "Without outside help, they are doomed."
Life crossroads leads to hedgehog haven
Vacchetta, now 57, has been running the hospital for over a decade. Originally, after studying in Turin, he had planned to turn the house into a holiday rental.
But after a divorce and growing dissatisfaction with his work as a veterinarian – particularly in the industrial farming sector - he found himself at a crossroads.
Then, in 2013, a colleague showed him a hedgehog baby weighing just 25 grams that had lost its mother. Vacchetta named it Ninna and nursed it back to health.
Veterinarian Massimo Vacchetta holds one of his patients at his hedgehog hospital.
That moment sparked his deep fascination with hedgehogs, one of the planet's oldest mammals, having existed for millions of years.
He learned that hedgehogs live only in Europe, Africa and Asia – and that their numbers are declining. The once-common western European hedgehog is now a protected species.
The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) listed it as "potentially endangered" on its Red List.
Hospital funded entirely by donations
In Italy, concerns about the decline in hedgehog populations have been growing for several years. This led Vacchetta to establish a practice exclusively for hedgehogs, which he named after his first patient: La Ninna.
Over time, it has grown into a hospital with six full-time employees and an annual budget of €300,000 ($336,520). The hospital is funded entirely by donations, with no government support.
"I don't want to be dependent on politics," Vacchetta said. Alongside several dozen volunteers, the hospital runs an emergency hotline around the clock. People travel from far away to bring injured or weakened hedgehogs to the facility.
Known as the "hedgehog doctor," Vacchetta also raises funds through hedgehog photos on Instagram and Facebook, gaining a growing following.
Famous voices for vulnerable hedgehogs
Vacchetta's first book about Ninna, titled "Twenty-five grams of Happiness," has been translated into 12 languages.
In Italy, he has also released a comic book, with a foreword by Queen guitarist Brian May.
For the French edition, the foreword was written by Brigitte Bardot, a long-time animal welfare advocate, while the German version features a foreword by actor Andreas Hoppe, a former "Tatort" detective from Ludwigshafen.
Vacchetta sees his work as part of a larger picture. "When hedgehogs suffer, nature and humans suffer too," he said. "And with climate change, things will only get worse for hedgehogs in the coming years."
To this day, he ensures that every animal admitted to the hospital is given a name. "These are individual living beings, and they all deserve respect."
La Ninna retirement home
If the hospital staff manages to nurse the hedgehogs back to health, they are released back into the wild. "And most of the time, we succeed," Vacchetta said.
Older animals that can no longer survive on their own are given a place on the third floor, in the "La Ninna" retirement home, where they live out their final days.
Hedgehogs that don't make it are either buried in the cemetery across the street or sent to the veterinary faculty at the University of Turin.
As for Cetto, the little hedgehog from the intensive care unit, he is now doing much better. Thanks to antibiotic treatment, he has recovered from the parasites he contracted after his car accident.
He has also gained 100 grams in just a few days and is nearly 500 grams. Hedgehogs generally weigh between that and 1 kilogram. If his progress continues, Cetto will soon be ready to return to the wild. – By Christoph Sator/dpa
