AFP UK

Walking the equivalent of twice around the world during a life lasting 28 years, one wooly mammoth whose steps have been traced by researchers has proven the huge beast was a long-distance wanderer.

The findings, published Thursday in the prestigious journal Science, could shed light on theories about why the mammoth, whose teeth were bigger than the human fist, became extinct.

“In all popular culture — for example if you watch (the cartoon) ‘Ice Age’ — there are always mammoths who move around a lot,” said Clement Bataille, assistant professor at the University of Ottawa and one of the lead authors of the study.

But there is no clear reason why mammoths should have trekked great distances “because it is such an enormous animal that moving around uses a lot of energy,” he told AFP.

The researchers were amazed by the results: the mammoth they studied probably walked around 70,000 kilometers (43,500 miles), and did not stay just on the plains of Alaska as they expected.

“We see that it traveled throughout Alaska, so an immense territory,” said Bataille. “It was really a surprise.”

– Readings on a tusk –

For their study, the researchers selected the tusks of a male woolly mammoth who lived at the end of the last ice age.

The animal — named “Kik” after a local river — lived relatively close to the time of the extinction of the species, around 13,000 years ago.

One of the two tusks was cut in half to take readings of strontium isotope ratios.

Strontium is a chemical element similar to limestone and is present in soil. It is transmitted to vegetation and, when eaten, is deposited in bones, teeth… or tusks.

The tusks grow throughout a mammal’s life, with the tip reflecting the first years of life, and the base representing the final years.

Isotope ratios are different depending on geology, and Bataille developed an isotopic map of the region.

By comparing it with the data from the tusks, it was possible to track when and where the mammoth had been.

At the time, glaciers covered all of the Brooks Range of mountains in the north and the Alaska Range in the south, with the plain of the Yukon River in the center.

The animal returned regularly to some areas, where it could stay for several years. But his movements also changed greatly depending on his age, before he eventually died of hunger.

During the first two years of his life, researchers were even able to observe signs of breastfeeding.

“What was really surprising was that after the teenage years, the isotopic variations start to be much more important,” said Bataille.

The mammoth has “three or four times in its life, made an immense journey of 500, 600 even 700 kilometers, in a few months.”

Scientists say the male may have been solitary, and moving from herd to herd to reproduce. Or he could have been facing a drought or a harsh winter, forcing him to seek a new area where food was more plentiful.

– Lessons for today? –

Whether for genetic diversity, or due to scarce resources, it is “clear that this species needed an extremely large area” to live,” said Bataille.

But, at the time of the transition from the ice age to the interglacial period — when they were extinct — “the area shrank because more forests grew” and “humans put quite a lot of pressure on southern Alaska, where mammoths probably moved much less.”

Understanding factors that led to the disappearance of mammoths may help protect other threatened megafauna species, such as caribou or elephants.

With today’s climate changing, and humans often restricting big species to parks and reserves, Bataille said, “do we want our children 1,000 years from now to view elephants the same way we view mammoths today?”

Walking the equivalent of twice around the world during a life lasting 28 years, one wooly mammoth whose steps have been traced by researchers has proven the huge beast was a long-distance wanderer.

The findings, published Thursday in the prestigious journal Science, could shed light on theories about why the mammoth, whose teeth were bigger than the human fist, became extinct.

“In all popular culture — for example if you watch (the cartoon) ‘Ice Age’ — there are always mammoths who move around a lot,” said Clement Bataille, assistant professor at the University of Ottawa and one of the lead authors of the study.

But there is no clear reason why mammoths should have trekked great distances “because it is such an enormous animal that moving around uses a lot of energy,” he told AFP.

The researchers were amazed by the results: the mammoth they studied probably walked around 70,000 kilometers (43,500 miles), and did not stay just on the plains of Alaska as they expected.

“We see that it traveled throughout Alaska, so an immense territory,” said Bataille. “It was really a surprise.”

– Readings on a tusk –

For their study, the researchers selected the tusks of a male woolly mammoth who lived at the end of the last ice age.

The animal — named “Kik” after a local river — lived relatively close to the time of the extinction of the species, around 13,000 years ago.

One of the two tusks was cut in half to take readings of strontium isotope ratios.

Strontium is a chemical element similar to limestone and is present in soil. It is transmitted to vegetation and, when eaten, is deposited in bones, teeth… or tusks.

The tusks grow throughout a mammal’s life, with the tip reflecting the first years of life, and the base representing the final years.

Isotope ratios are different depending on geology, and Bataille developed an isotopic map of the region.

By comparing it with the data from the tusks, it was possible to track when and where the mammoth had been.

At the time, glaciers covered all of the Brooks Range of mountains in the north and the Alaska Range in the south, with the plain of the Yukon River in the center.

The animal returned regularly to some areas, where it could stay for several years. But his movements also changed greatly depending on his age, before he eventually died of hunger.

During the first two years of his life, researchers were even able to observe signs of breastfeeding.

“What was really surprising was that after the teenage years, the isotopic variations start to be much more important,” said Bataille.

The mammoth has “three or four times in its life, made an immense journey of 500, 600 even 700 kilometers, in a few months.”

Scientists say the male may have been solitary, and moving from herd to herd to reproduce. Or he could have been facing a drought or a harsh winter, forcing him to seek a new area where food was more plentiful.

– Lessons for today? –

Whether for genetic diversity, or due to scarce resources, it is “clear that this species needed an extremely large area” to live,” said Bataille.

But, at the time of the transition from the ice age to the interglacial period — when they were extinct — “the area shrank because more forests grew” and “humans put quite a lot of pressure on southern Alaska, where mammoths probably moved much less.”

Understanding factors that led to the disappearance of mammoths may help protect other threatened megafauna species, such as caribou or elephants.

With today’s climate changing, and humans often restricting big species to parks and reserves, Bataille said, “do we want our children 1,000 years from now to view elephants the same way we view mammoths today?”

The WHO on Thursday urged China to share raw data from the earliest Covid-19 cases to revive its probe into the origins of the disease, as Russia recorded record deaths.

The World Health Organization’s plea came as Russia saw its highest daily death toll from the pandemic that has killed at least 4.3 million people worldwide. 

The WHO stressed it was “vitally important” to uncover the origins of the virus first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019.

In the face of pushback from Beijing, the UN health agency called for the provision of “all data and access required so that the next series of studies can be commenced as soon as possible”.

After much delay, a WHO team of international experts went to Wuhan in January 2021 to produce a first phase report, which was written in conjunction with their Chinese counterparts.

Their March report drew no firm conclusions, instead ranking four hypotheses.

It said the virus jumping from bats to humans via an intermediate animal was the most probable scenario, while a leak from the Wuhan virology labs was “extremely unlikely”.

– ‘Arrogance towards science’ –

However, the investigation faced criticism for lacking transparency and access, and for not evaluating the lab-leak theory more deeply.

A WHO call last month for the investigation’s second stage to include audits of the Wuhan labs infuriated Beijing, with vice health minister Zeng Yixin saying the plan showed “disrespect for common sense and arrogance towards science”.

After reading the phase one report, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus concluded that the probe into Wuhan’s virology labs had not gone far enough.

Meanwhile, Danish scientist Peter Ben Embarek, who led the international mission to Wuhan, said a lab employee infected while taking samples in the field falls under one of the likely hypotheses as to how the virus passed from bats to humans.

He told the Danish public channel TV2 that the suspect bats were not from the Wuhan region and the only people likely to have approached them were workers from the Wuhan labs.

– ‘Best practice’ –

“In order to address the ‘lab hypothesis’, it is important to have access to all data and consider scientific best practice and look at the mechanisms WHO already has in place.”

Analysing and improving lab safety and protocols “including in China, is important for our collective biosafety and security”, it said.

Russia, the fourth worst-hit country in the world in terms of cases, reported its highest daily coronavirus death toll since the start of the pandemic despite an intensifying vaccination drive. 

A government tally reported 808 fatalities over the past 24 hours — the first time Russia has crossed the 800-mark for daily virus deaths — and 21,932 new infections. 

Authorities have faced a vaccine-sceptic population, with a poll by the independent Levada Centre this week showing that 55 percent of Russians do not plan on getting a jab. 

In the US, the health department is to require all its public-facing health care workers to get jabs amid a surge in hospitalisations driven by the Delta variant.

The policy will apply to around 25,000 Department of Health and Human Services employees who could come into contact with patients — just under a third of its total workforce. 

“Our number one goal is the health and safety of the American public, including our federal workforce. And vaccines are the best tool we have,” US Health Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a statement.

Health is the third federal department to introduce a vaccine mandate, following similar edicts from the Department of Veterans Affairs and the Pentagon in recent weeks.

Average daily hospital admissions in the week to August 3 were 7,707 — a 40 percent jump in just one week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

– Terminal closure –

And in signs that the epidemic’s economic impact is far from over, China on Thursday announced it was partially closing the world’s third-busiest cargo port after a worker tested positive for coronavirus.

Almost 2,000 front-line workers at Ningbo-Zhoushan port have been placed under “closed management” — effectively unable to leave the port — as a result of the infection, Chinese media reported. 

The virus has also hit global oil demand — a bellwether for economic growth — due to lockdowns in major consuming countries fuelled by the Delta variant, the International Energy Agency said on Thursday.

Demand had been recovering, but it “abruptly reversed course” in July as the Delta variant undermined deliveries in China, Indonesia and other parts of Asia, the IEA said in a monthly report.

In Britain, however, the economy rebounded 4.8 percent in the second quarter as consumer spending surged with the relaxation of anti-virus restrictions, official data showed Thursday.

Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Thursday said his climate fund would pour $1.5 billion into projects with the United States if the government enacts a program to cut carbon emissions currently working its way through Congress.

A $1.2 trillion infrastructure package passed by the US Senate this week would funnel billions of dollars to the Department of Energy for projects battling climate change.

If the infrastructure package becomes law, “this collaboration will not only send us on a more durable path to net zero, but will create both immediate and long-term jobs in communities across the country,” Gates said in a statement published by CNBC.

By funding work on roads, bridges and ports, as well as clean water and high-speed internet, US President Joe Biden said the bill — which still needs House approval — would create thousands of high-paying jobs for people without college degrees.

“This historic investment in infrastructure is what I believe you, the American people, want,” Biden said in a White House address. 

Needing just a simple majority, the package passed by 69 votes to 30 with backing from a third of Republican Senators.

The measure now faces a make-or-break vote in the House of Representatives in coming weeks, where its future is less certain as divisions have sprung up in the Democratic majority.

The ambitious plan provides for $550 billion in new federal spending on transport infrastructure, and also for public transit, broadband internet and clean water, as well as electric charging stations and other measures to fight climate change.

A Gates fund run by his Breakthrough Energy company would spend the $1.5 billion over the course of three years with the goal of eliminating greenhouse gas emissions contributing to climate change, according to US media reports.

Projects could include airplanes that don’t spew pollution and technology for capturing carbon from the air.

“Critical for all these climate technologies is to get the costs down and to be able to scale them up to a pretty gigantic level,” Gates was quoted as telling the Wall Street Journal.

“You’ll never get that scale up unless the government’s coming in with the right policies, and the right policy is exactly what’s in that infrastructure bill.”

The WHO on Thursday urged China to share raw data from the earliest Covid-19 cases to revive the pandemic origins probe — and release information to address the controversial lab leak theory.

The World Health Organization stressed it was “vitally important” to uncover the origins of the worst pandemic in a century, which has killed at least 4.3 million people and battered the global economy since the virus was first detected in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December 2019.

In the face of pushback from Beijing, the UN health agency called for the provision of “all data and access required so that the next series of studies can be commenced as soon as possible”.

After much delay, a WHO team of international experts went to Wuhan in January 2021 to produce a first phase report, which was written in conjunction with their Chinese counterparts.

Their March report drew no firm conclusions, instead ranking four hypotheses.

It said the virus jumping from bats to humans via an intermediate animal was the most probable scenario, while a leak from the Wuhan virology labs was “extremely unlikely”.

However, the investigation faced criticism for lacking transparency and access, and for not evaluating the lab-leak theory more deeply — with the United States upping the pressure ever since.

A WHO call last month for the investigation’s second stage to include audits of the Wuhan labs infuriated Beijing, with vice health minister Zeng Yixin saying the plan showed “disrespect for common sense and arrogance towards science”.

– Data access critical: WHO –

In a statement on advancing phase two of the studies, the WHO insisted the search was not “an exercise in attributing blame” or political point-scoring.

“The next series of studies would include a further examination of the raw data from the earliest cases and sera from potential early cases in 2019,” the UN agency said.

“Access to data is critically important for evolving our understanding of science.”

The WHO said it was working with several countries that reported detection of SARS-CoV-2 in samples from 2019 stored biological specimens.

For example, it said, in Italy, it had facilitated an independent evaluation by international laboratories, which included the blind retesting of pre-pandemic blood samples.

“Sharing raw data and giving permission for the retesting of samples in labs outside of Italy reflects scientific solidarity at its best and is no different from what we encourage all countries, including China, to support so that we can advance the studies of the origins quickly and effectively,” the WHO said.

– Lab leak theory –

After reading the phase one report, WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus concluded that the probe into Wuhan’s virology labs had not gone far enough.

Long derided as a right-wing conspiracy theory and vehemently rejected by Beijing, the hypothesis has been gaining momentum.

It was a favourite under former US president Donald Trump, but his successor Joe Biden is also keen to see this line of enquiry pursued.

“China and a number of other member states have written to WHO regarding the basis for further studies of the SARS-CoV-2 ‘lab hypothesis’,” the WHO said.

“They have also suggested the origins study has been politicised, or that WHO has acted due to political pressure.

“In order to address the ‘lab hypothesis’, it is important to have access to all data and consider scientific best practice and look at the mechanisms WHO already has in place.”

– Row on report –

It added that analysing and improving lab safety and protocols “including in China, is important for our collective biosafety and security”.

Meanwhile Danish scientist Peter Ben Embarek, who led the international mission to Wuhan, said a lab employee infected while taking samples in the field falls under one of the likely hypotheses as to how the virus passed from bats to humans.

He told the Danish public channel TV2 that the suspect bats were not from the Wuhan region and the only people likely to have approached them were workers from the Wuhan labs.

He also revealed that up until 48 hours before the end of the mission, the international and Chinese scientists still could not even agree on mentioning the lab theory in the report.

Use of “clean” hydrogen has been seen as a viable and environmentally benign energy alternative, but a study released Thursday said it could lead to higher greenhouse gas emissions than coal.

The study takes aim at an energy source touted by President Joe Biden’s administration, the International Energy Agency, and some major energy companies.

The authors lambast “blue hydrogen,” saying it “appears difficult to justify on climate grounds.” 

“Blue hydrogen is hardly emissions free,” according to an article in academic journal Energy Science and Engineering that alludes to the broad support for the fuel in Washington and beyond.

Biden’s $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill which the Senate passed on Tuesday, does not mention “blue hydrogen” but includes $8 billion in funding for at least four “regional clean hydrogen hubs.”

But the researchers warned that using the fuel, which involves carbon capture and storage (CCS), as part of a clean energy strategy “only works to the extent it is possible to store carbon dioxide long-term indefinitely into the future without leakage back to the atmosphere.”

The US Energy Department in June announced $52.5 million in funding for 31 projects to support “next generation clean hydrogen.” 

And a 2019 IEA report touted hydrogen’s potential “to become a critical part of a more sustainable and secure energy future.”

But the production is energy-intensive, with emissions released during the heating and pressuring process and from the use of natural gas as a base fuel to generate hydrogen, according to the study by Cornell’s Robert Howarth and Stanford’s Mark Jacobson.

While blue hydrogen does contain some of emissions, the paper notes that energy also is needed in the carbon-capture process. 

As a result, it “provides no benefit,” since the combined emissions of carbon dioxide and methane, another greenhouse gas, are greater for blue and gray hydrogen than for natural gas, diesel oil or coal, the paper said.

“We suggest that blue hydrogen is best viewed as a distraction, something that may delay needed action to truly decarbonize the global energy economy,” the authors wrote.

Italian firefighterson Thursday battled hundreds of fires throughout the country’s south that have killed four people, fuelled by unrelenting temperatures enveloping southern Europe.

Firefighters said there were over 500 blazes reported overnight as the anticyclone dubbed Lucifer sweeps across Italy, sending temperatures soaring and causing what is believed to be a new European record of 48.8 degrees Celsius (119.8 Fahrenheit) in Sicily on Wednesday.

The heatwave across vast swathes of the Mediterranean region in recent days began to shift west on Thursday, with many of France’s southern areas put under a high temperature alert. 

Spain and Portugal went on alert for wildfires as three new blazes broke out in Spain’s north, even as flames continued to sweep across northern Algeria, Tunisia, and Greece — a series of extreme weather events experts say are intensified by climate change.

The searing heat is due to continue in Italy for several days and risks fuelling fires that have already plagued much of the country’s south in recent weeks, notably in Sicily and the region of Calabria.

The burned body of a 79-year-old man was found in the Reggio Calabria area on Wednesday, while another man, aged 77, died in the same region after trying to shelter his herd from the flames, news agencies reported.

Their deaths follow those of a woman, 53, and her nephew, 35, also in Reggio Calabria, who died last Friday trying to save the family olive grove.

The fire service on Thursday morning reported making 528 interventions in the past 12 hours, 230 in Sicily, “where the situation is currently under control”, including in the Madonie mountain range, near Palermo.

Regional authorities in Sicily have declared a state of emergency as a result of the fires, while 50 voluntary fire-fighting teams from around Italy have flown in to help battle the blazes. 

The fire service reported 100 interventions overnight in Calabria, with particularly difficult blazes in the areas of Reggio Calabria, Catanzaro and Cosenza. 

Prime Minister Mario Draghi said the government would put in place a “relief programme for people and businesses affected, along with a special plan for reforestation and securing the territory”.

An anticyclone is an area of high atmospheric pressure that in summer brings dry, hot weather. 

The Mediterranean has been singled out as a “climate change hotspot”, with increasing temperatures and aridity lengthening fire seasons and doubling the areas potentially burnt, according to a draft UN assessment seen exclusively by AFP.

Hundreds of firefighters battled Thursday to contain new flare-ups in wildfire-ravaged areas of Greece, where summer infernos have caused what the prime minister described as the country’s “greatest ecological disaster in decades”.

Rain overnight in some areas and falling temperatures appeared to have eased the situation after two weeks of devastating blazes, and Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said “we can be more optimistic today.”

But weeks of scorching summer weather lie ahead.

Greece’s most severe heatwave in decades has fanned blazes that have destroyed more than 100,000 hectares of forests and farmland, the country’s worst wildfire damage since 2007, the European Forest Fire Information System said Thursday. 

The fires have left three dead, hundreds homeless, forced thousands to flee, and caused economic and environmental devastation.

Greece is just one of a number of countries in the Mediterranean region that have been hit by a savage fire season which authorities have blamed on climate change.

Mitsotakis on Thursday described the “mega fires” as Greece’s “greatest ecological disaster in decades”.

“The climate crisis is here… and it tells us that everything must change,” he told reporters, pointing to other devastating fires in Turkey, Italy and Algeria.

“We managed to protect thousands of people. But we lost forests and properties,” he said, vowing to overhaul the country’s civil protection authority.

Mitsotakis said that 150 homes have been destroyed in greater Athens over the last week, while the count is ongoing on the island of Evia, which accounts for more than half of the area burned nationwide.

The PM has been placed on the defensive after his government as recently as June was assuring Greeks that the country was fully prepared to face the coming fire season.

But on Thursday he was forced to admit: “It seemed that this particular phenomenon exceeded our capabilities and the preparations put in place.”

Main opposition leader Alexis Tsipras argued that Mitsotakis had “failed to grasp the magnitude of the disaster…and the scope of his responsibilities.”

– ‘Can’t take it anymore’ –

A fire service official told AFP on Thursday that “the fire fronts are still active” on Evia and in the Arcadia region of the Peloponnese peninsula and “fires are constantly flaring up” in both areas.

In the north of Evia, where hundreds have been evacuated by boat, 858 firefighters including reinforcements from several European countries were battling the flames.

At the height of the fires in early August, the flames had reached the gates of Athens, filling the sky of the city of four million inhabitants with grey smoke.

But after weeks of punishing temperatures often well over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit), temperatures dropped on Thursday.

The falling temperatures and overnight rain in Evia, the Peloponnese and central Greece had helped improve the situation, said Stathis Koulis, the mayor of Gortynia.

The village in a mountainous area of Arcadia 200 kilometres (120 miles) west of Athens has become the primary focus in the Peloponnese, with deep ravines posing a challenge to firefighters.

Twenty villages have been evacuated in the area over the past few days and 680 firefighters, including more than a hundred sent to help from France, and five water-dropping aircraft have been relentlessly battling the flames.

On Evia island, meanwhile, locals have lost their livelihoods.

“I can’t take it anymore,” said farmer Kostis Angelou as he wandered between the corpses of his goats, all 372 of them burnt by a fire that devoured forests.

The 44-year-old managed to survive by spending hours under an irrigation water pipe, surrounded by flames.

“A saint saved me,” he said.

– Climate ‘code red’ –

The latest extreme weather events come after a “code red” report from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was published on Monday warning that the world is warming far faster than previously feared.

The Mediterranean has been singled out as a “climate change hotspot”, with increasing temperatures and aridity lengthening fire seasons, according to a draft IPCC assessment seen exclusively by AFP.

Algeria announced three days of national mourning starting Thursday for the 69 killed in blazes there.

In Italy, 48.8 degrees Celsius (119.8 Fahrenheit) was registered in Sicily on Wednesday — beating the previous high registered in Greece in 1977 in what is believed to be a new European record.

Eight people were killed in fires in Turkey’s south earlier in the month, while in the north the death toll rose to 11 on Thursday from flash floods that have swept across several Black Sea regions.

Heavy rains that have lashed the West African state of Niger since June have claimed 55 lives and left 53,000 people homeless, authorities said on Thursday.

More than 4,800 homes have been damaged by floods or landslips, and nearly 900 cattle have been lost, Colonel Bako Boubacar, the head of the civil protection agency, said on state radio.

The worst-hit regions are Maradi in the southeast, Agadez in the desert north and the capital Niamey, where 16 have died.

An impoverished landlocked country in the Sahel, Niger struggles with chronic aridity and heat.

The rainy season is short, typically lasting from June to August or September, although in recent years it has been exceptionally strong. 

Last year, floods claimed 73 lives and sparked a humanitarian crisis with 2.2 million people needing assistance, according to the United Nations. In 2019, 57 died.

The previous toll from this year’s rainy season, issued on July 31, stood at 35 dead and 26,532 people homeless.

With balm and bandages for scorched paws, volunteers at a makeshift animal shelter north of Athens are doing what they can for cats and dogs, whether strays or left behind as their owners fled advancing wildfires.

The volunteer vets have organised an “intensive care” area to monitor severely burnt animals under a tarpaulin in an abandoned quarry on the outskirts of the capital.

“So far we have taken in 233 animals,” Yannis Batsas, president of Action Volunteers Greek Veterinarians, told AFP. 

And the animals keep coming. “We receive about 20 every day.”

The less severely affected four-legged survivors get baths every two to three hours to cool their burns.

“It’s time for a bath,” one young volunteer said as she took hold of two small puppies, easing them into a small basin of water.

– First victims –

Many in the Athens area were evacuated at the start of August as advancing wildfires ravaged pine forests and homes some 30 kilometres (19 miles) north of the capital.

Along roads lined with the charred husks of pine trees, AFP reporters met groups of volunteers collecting abandoned aminals in Efnides and other affected villages.

With strays common in the area, the animals are the first victims of the fires, the vets say, not to mention the many domesticated animals left in gardens as their owners fled.

The volunteers at the shelter do what they can to comfort the animals, circulating among cages where dogs with bandaged paws await their owners.

In a cacophony of barking, the dogs, burnt on their paws or on their bodies, joyfully welcome the volunteers whenever they approach.

Settled on sheets filled with ice cubes, about 20 of the canines are waiting for their owners to come and reclaim them or, failing that, a family to adopt them.

So far, nearly 90 animals have found their families, said Elena Dede, founder of nonprofit organisation Dogs’ Voice.

Dede said more than 2,000 people showed up to volunteer, many agreeing to take dogs home for a couple of weeks to ease pressure at the shelter. 

“Instead of having 200 animals all in one place, you’ll never have more than about 50, and that’s because of the shelters and adoptions,” said Batsas.

– Outpouring of solidarity –

Dede said the group had received donations amounting to about 10 tonnes of dog and cat food. 

“That will be distributed all over Attica, in areas affected by the fires and here of course,” she said. 

The outpouring of solidarity in Athens is encouraging volunteers to open another centre on the island of Evia, where wildfires continued to rage on Thursday.

“A team left for Evia to go and see the farms, the goats, the sheep that were burnt,” said Batsas.

“Evia is a different story. We have to be sure that we’ll have the capacity to respond with the same efficiency that we have here,” said Dede.

Evacuating injured animals from Greece’s second largest island is complicated.

“They have to be transported by boat, which lengthens the journeys,” said Irini Tapouti, director of the Chalkida veterinary clinic on Evia.

On the beach at Pefki, where deckchairs are now covered with ash, Roula Papadimitri and her daughter Eva are bringing first aid and comfort to a dozen dogs they saved from the flames.

They were forced to abandon their house in the adjoining village of Artemisia on foot.

“There is no way I’m leaving without them,” Eva said. 

“How can you abandon dogs,” asked her mother, incredulous.

Slowly, Roula poured water into the animals’ thirsty mouths. A small cat rescued from the flames weaves in and out between the trembling dogs.

Three dogs have been caged to stop them running away and endangering themselves, said Roula.

“I’m not going to let them go and be taken by a wolf.”