July 26th 2023.
Animal charities are in a race against time to help rescue animals in need amid the devastating wildfires that have been ravaging parts of Greece and beyond. Volunteers from Rhodes Animal Welfare Shelter are among those desperately trying to save animals that have been left behind or separated from their owners in the chaos.
Wildlife such as deer are particularly vulnerable in this situation, with heartbreaking images of baby owls being found in cardboard boxes. Loulouditsa Larou, a volunteer from the shelter, described the situation as a ‘nightmare’ and ‘worse every day’. She also revealed that they had seen several dead animals, as well as those that had been abandoned in their cages.
The Rhodes Animal Welfare Shelter is appealing for donations to help fund their work. Financial support will be greatly appreciated and receipts will be provided to show where the money is going. To donate, people can use the National Bank of Greece, IBAN and Swift details provided, or donate via paypal using the email
[email protected].
Four shelters have taken in around 1,050 dogs, cats and farm animals, but volunteers are struggling to keep up with the hundreds of calls they receive every day about injured or distressed animals. Firefighters were seen giving water to two rabbits with blackened fur on Rhodes, while in Dervenochoria, only 11 tortoises were found alive in a ‘vast graveyard’ of burned animals.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare has also reported burnt tortoises, with Céline Sissler-Bienvenu describing it as ‘heartbreaking’. Other images are too harrowing to publish, including a fox lying dead on a track due to severe charring to its nose, eyes and ears. Temperatures of up to 46℃ are forcing many species to injure themselves in order to survive.
The wildfires have spread across parts of southern Europe and North Africa, with tourists and locals being forced to flee for their lives. In Greece, two pilots tragically lost their lives while waterbombing an area on the island of Evia. Turkey, Croatia, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Algeria and Tunisia have also seen their regions set ablaze by the Saharan Cerberus heatwave.
A map has been created charting the trail of fire across Europe and Northern Africa, and animal charities are appealing for help to save the animals caught up in this tragic situation.
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