Wildfire season is getting more intense everywhere, especially in Greece. The country’s warm, dry summers already made fires likely, but stronger heatwaves and more prolonged dry spells are intensifying their impact. With your free clicks, trivia participation, shopping for a cause, and donations, you’ve helped us team up with an organization rescuing wildlife amid the fires and the heat.

Athens-based ANIMA – Hellenic Wildlife Care Association recently benefitted from a $5,000 cash grant from Greater Good Charities ahead of this busy season. The organization provides care for injured wildlife, with the hope of rehabilitating them and getting them back into the wild. They’ve also got extra work to do during the extreme conditions this time of year.

So far during the 2024 fire season, hundreds of fires have sparked in Greece, including several near Athens that prompted evacuations. Heatwaves have both worsened fire conditions and been a threat on their own. As temperatures have soared well into the triple digits, at least six tourists have died, schools and offices have been closed, and popular tourist attractions like the Acropolis have had limited hours to keep visitors and workers safe. 

Amid all this, ANIMA has been hard at work responding to fires and the heat in the Athens area and around Mount Parnitha. This has included reuniting people with their pets along with their usual wildlife work, and plenty of wild animals have needed saving in these extreme conditions.

The organization says they’ve seen an especially high number of roe deer fawns come through their doors this year. One was rescued on Good Thursday, which earned him the name Paschalis – “The Easter One” in Greek. Paschalis was found alone, calling for his mother who was nowhere to be found, on a country highway. A driver decided to help, which ANIMA said was the right thing to do because the fawn’s behavior showed something must have happened to his mother.

The man who rescued him fed him ewe formula until he could figure out what to do. A friend ultimately referred him to ANIMA, which took Paschalis in and immediately got to work providing the specialized care he needed to survive. ANIMA says fawns are very delicate and need the right kind of food and care, which one of their more experienced deer handlers was able to provide. He quickly gained weight, developed a bit of spunk, and was transported to a roe deer facility in northern Greece with other fawns. He and the other deer will be cared for and gradually reintroduced to the outdoors until they’re ready to be released back into the wild in 2025, once they’re over a year old.

Other babies that require the right kind of love and care are orphaned raptors. Though we think of them as powerful due to their strength and hunting prowess in adulthood, they need constant care early in life. They’d normally be wholly dependent upon their parents, but without them, staff at ANIMA have to carry the parenting load. Baby raptors, including owls like the one pictured below, are given specialized food supplemented with the right vitamins and minerals to help them become strong adults.

When they can eat on their own, they’re moved to outdoor enclosures, where they slowly learn how to hunt. The process involves special cages, of which ANIMA never seems to have enough, due to the number of baby birds that come through their doors each year.

There’s often medical care needed, too, like for this baby fox that appeared to have only one eye when he was found. Good Samaritans came across the cub in the scorching heat. He was emaciated, weak, and had one eye completely closed. He was initially brought into one of ANIMA’s outdoor sites, but he was in such bad shape that he needed to be transferred elsewhere to receive the care he needed to survive.

Through blood tests, staff learned that he had a respiratory infection and an eye infection, and he was immediately put on antibiotics. To address his low weight and malnourishment, he was also put on a strengthening and fattening diet. He spent 10 days in intensive care, but he survived, as did his eye.

He’s not completely out of the woods yet, though, as he needs more time to recover and rehabilitate to be strong enough for release.

These animals are just some of the little ones ANIMA has cared for as heat and wildfires continue to strike Greece. Others have included hedgehogs, hares, wild boars, martens, and bats. Some have been orphaned, while others are ill or seriously injured. ANIMA says while these babies are very cute, they require extensive care in their parents’ absence, and that care must be specialized for the species.

August is expected to be rough, as well, as hot and dry conditions persist, so there are sure to be more animals taken into the care of rescue organizations across Greece.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said at a cabinet meeting, "We still have a very difficult month, August, ahead of us and obviously we all need to be on high alert.”

Your clicks, trivia participation, shopping for a cause, and direct donations have helped us support organizations on the front lines, like ANIMA. If you’d like to keep providing needed rescue and care for wildlife in Greece as fires continue to rage and heat continues to be a threat, click below!