Rescuers in Rhodes face ‘daily nightmare’ to save wild deer and pets

Animal rescuers are living a ‘nightmare’ trying to rescue animals amid wildfires in Greece.

Volunteers from Rhodes Animal Welfare Shelter are among those battling to find creatures caught up in the devastation.

Many pet owners have been forced to abandon animals – or have lost them – in the urgency to flee raging fires.

Wild animals such as deer are also in real danger.

Huge swathes of forest have been destroyed, claiming the lives of ‘countless’ animals – as heartbreaking images show blackened baby owls in cardboard boxes.

Loulouditsa Larou, of the Rhodes Animal Welfare Shelter, told Metro: ‘For now we [people and animals at the shelter] are all safe The heat is bearable except in the places where the fires are active.

‘The animals in our shelter are not in danger, but the animals of the forest are doubtful.

‘We have seen several dead animals and many caged animals that were abandoned by their owners inside the cages.

‘Every day Giorgos Kritikos, president of our organization, performs endless rescues.;

Loulouditsa has worked alongside Giorgos to try trace wild deer in the region who have been left traumatised by the fires.

For those who live on the island, and cannot escape like tourists, there is no end in sight.

Loulouditsa added: ‘Every day we live a nightmare. Worse every day. Volunteers are fighting the fire.’

The Rhodes Animal Welfare Shelter is desperately appealing for donations to help fund their work.

Any financial support will be greatly received and receipts will be shown to prove where vital money is going.

Elsewhere, four shelters said they had taken in around 1,050 dogs, cats and farm animals between them, with one volunteer losing most of her own pets in the fires.

A leading Greek wildlife care group said it had treated 1,000 injured animals in the first two weeks in July, but was now too overwhelmed to update its estimates.

Rescuers from ANIMA, who have taken in dogs, tortoises, snakes and owls, said they were ‘almost on our knees’ responding to ‘hundreds’ of calls every day from people finding injured animals.

On Monday, firefighters were seen giving water to two rabbits with blackened fur found barely moving in Rhodes.

Rescuers in Dervenochoria, an hour north of Athens, found only 11 tortoises alive in a ‘vast graveyard’ of burned tortoises and other animals.

‘In some of the affected forest areas, burnt tortoises have been observed, as the slow-moving reptiles simply couldn’t outrun the flames,’ said Céline Sissler-Bienvenu of the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Other images too harrowing to publish include a fox lying dead on a track after suffering severe charring to its nose, eyes and ears.

While animals in fire-stricken areas have suffered from burns and smoke inhalation, temperatures of up to 46C are forcing many species to injure themselves in order to save their lives.

Rescuers described large birds such as pelicans and vultures showing ‘symptoms of poisoning’ likely caused by swallowing large amounts of seawater while trying to cool off along the coast.

Meanwhile, smaller birds such as swifts, which are known to nest in high-rise buildings, have had to abandon their homes in nooks where rescuers say temperatures have reached 60℃.

South of Europe and North Africa burns

People in countries such as Turkey, Greece, Croatia, Italy, Spain, Portugal, Algeria and Tunisia seen their regions set ablaze by unprecedented forest fires, as the Mediterranean swelters through record temperatures brought by the Saharan Cerberus heatwave.

Tourists have been evacuated while locals have been moved to temporary accommodation.

Terrified holidaymakers spoke of fleeing with children in tow or via boat to escape the rising flames.

In Greece, two pilots tragically lost their lives while waterbombing an ablaze area on the island of Evia.

In Algeria, at least 34 people have died and thousands have been evacuated due to wildfires.

This morning, a state of emergency was declared for the entirety of Rhodes due to the fires.

Turkish firefighters battled a wildfire near the resort of Kemer in the southern province of Antalya on Tuesday, tackling the blaze from land and air amid high temperatures across the region.

The blaze spread fast through woodland in the area as a result of strong winds and low humidity, the Antalya governor’s office said in a statement.

Firefighters battled wildfires that were spreading in the area south of the Croatian Adriatic city of Dubrovnik late on Tuesday.

Strong southerly winds preventing deployment of aircraft and landmines exploding, local media reported.

‘A hurricane southern wind blowing in the Dubrovnik-Neretva canton has fuelled a widespread open space fire in the area of the Dubrovnik Plat community,’ the Croatian Firefighters Community (HVZ) said on its website.

A map has been created charting the trail of fire across Europe and Northern Africa.

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