Les Stocker’s life was inextricably altered in 1976, when he stumbled on an injured hedgehog near his home. Unable to get it help from a local veterinarian, who offered to put it to sleep, Stocker took the little animal home and tended to it himself.

It was the beginning of a 40-year journey that would transform the Brit’s mundane life as an accountant. Before his untimely death from an abdominal aortic aneurism last July, Stocker, 73, had become a world-renowned wildlife treatment expert and had created Europe’s first wildlife teaching hospital, Tiggywinkles.

Although he lacked formal veterinary training, Stocker pioneered wildlife medical care at a time when traditional veterinary medicine focused on treating domesticated animals and pets.

An injured wild animal “had