KALÝVIA THORIKOÚ (AFP) – In an animal shelter near Athens, veterinarian Kleopatra Gkika gently smears soothing cream on the leg of a tortoise, one of hundreds singed in Greece’s devastating summer wildfires.
The healing process is going well, the vet noted.
The burnt skin has fallen off and the tortoise can soon be released back into its natural habitat.
Even though, there may not be much of that habitat left, Gkika mused. In July and August, Greece was affected by a series of successive wildfires around the country that left at least 26 people dead.
The area around the shelter in Kalyvia Thorikou, some 60 kilometres southeast of Athens, was among the first to be hit.
A few weeks later, the pristine forest of Dadia in northeastern Greece, which contains a natural park, went up in flames. The fires eventually engulfed nearly 94,000 hectares of the forest in the largest blaze ever recorded on European soil.
Deflecting criticism, the conservative government of Greece Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis – which won re-election in June by a landslide – has blamed the disaster on climate change.
Some 400 tortoises overall were rescued from blaze sites surrounding Athens and on the nearby island of Evia.
They were brought to Anima, a non-profit first aid centre for wildlife, and to a zoo near the capital.
“Some tortoises had burns on their legs or on their shell. Others had breathing difficulties because of smoke inhalation,” said the founder of Save Your Hood, a volunteer group that normally cleans up litter Vassilis Sfakianopoulos.
