A severely burned tortoise that survived a Greek wildfire is wriggling in pain at an Athens animal clinic, despite being given painkillers. It is one of the latest victims of climate change, which is wreaking havoc on the country’s wildlife. Most of the scorched scales on its back had to be removed with forceps.
According to vet Grigorios Markakis, when volunteers brought the tortoise in, “it was really depressed and had its mouth open trying to breathe because of the smoke.” He told AFP that while the tortoise is “much better” now, the prognosis is not good. “If the whole shell is burned, imagine what happened inside… All the internal organs will be dysfunctional,” he explained.
Markakis, 28, works at a first aid station run by the Greek wildlife protection group Anima, where he cares for orphaned, injured, or sick creatures ranging from hedgehogs and snakes to storks. The NGO has seen a surge in animal admissions, largely because of climate change, which scientists say is leading to longer, more intense, and more frequent heatwaves worldwide. This, in turn, fuels wildfires and creates other dangers for wildlife.
This summer, Greece experienced several major forest fires amid high temperatures, particularly around Athens and in the western Peloponnese. The government stated that approximately 45,000 hectares have burned this year.
Nikos Georgiadis from the World Wildlife Fund Greece told AFP, “These fires are now harder to suppress and often wipe out vast areas of critical habitat, killing animals directly and displacing many more.” He added, “Prolonged droughts, rising temperatures, and forest dieback all degrade habitats, reduce food and water availability, and make survival more difficult for many species.”
Anima staffer Anna Manta said “more and more animals” are being brought to them due to the prolonged heat. “Most get exhausted or they are forced to leave the nests really, really early,” she told AFP. Birds “just jump off the nests… because they get roasted alive,” she explained.
In July, during a searing heatwave in Greece with temperatures above 40°C, Anima admitted 1,586 animals. In June, that number was 2,125, almost 300 more than in the same period last year. “Last year we thought that it was the worst year we had ever seen… And then we had June,” Manta said. The center has also received many young, emaciated, and exhausted vultures. “Down in Crete, they can’t find water. Most of them go to the sea to drink water. They get poisoned because their body cannot process salt,” Manta noted.
The team treats these animals with medicine and fluids for a few days before moving them to outdoor cages to socialize. They are released back into the wild after about six months. Markakis said that climate change also affects “microorganisms, the parasites, the diseases, by affecting their transmission,” making it easier for them to spread.
At the clinic, a long-eared owl was perched on a computer monitor, its big orange eyes staring down at the keyboard as Anima president Maria Ganoti typed. Later, it stared again when people brought in a shoebox containing a quail attacked by cats, followed by a fox hit by a car—an increasingly common phenomenon. Georgiadis said the root cause of such incidents is habitat degradation and “the expansion of urban areas close to or into forests, [which] pushes foxes and other animals to venture into cities.”
Before taking the injured fox to the operating table, Markakis shared one of his “best life moments”: treating and releasing a cub that had severe head injuries back into the wild. “I just gave it a last look, I opened the door [of its cage] and it immediately disappeared—without even a thank you!” he laughed. “But it was magic.”
