Tag: volunteering

If you plan to visit Athens and are looking for a meaningful experience, there’s 1 place to go: The Sea Turtle Rescue Center along the Athens Riviera. Europe's biggest Turtle Rescue Center is run by Archelon, the Sea turtle protection society. Little known fact: Greece is the European country with the most sea turtle nests. And this is the turtle's veterinary hospital. What to expect on a Sea Turtle Rescue Center Tour?  Our small group arrived on a Sunday morning at 11:00 AM. At the end of winter 2020, just before the Coronavirus travel ban. That is, everyone but 1 couple that came by tram. They showed up a little later, due to some mix-up with the tram lines, so it’s a good idea to carefully check out this Urban Rail Transport website before taking of.   When we all got together our friendly Archelon host welcomed us.  We walked alongside large outdoor basins, designed for adult sea turtles. During wintertime, you will see typically fewer animals being cared for. In Summer most of these large outdoor basins will be filled with Loggerhead Sea Turtles (Caretta caretta) and occasionally other turtle species: green turtles (Chelonia mydas) and most unlikely the giant leatherbacks (Dermochelys coriacea).   After hearing the first intriguing turtle facts we could freely shoot our questions. In Greek and English, the 2 languages used in this tour. A short walk led us to the section with the sheltered basins. It is a little warmer here for the sick and injured patients. Here you get to see the injured turtles. Our host explained us that some patients are stressed out easily and those turtles are not even shown to the public.  Sea turtles here may suffer from a range of injuries including:  Flipper injuries  Head injuries  Carapace (the hard upper-shell) injuries  Hook & line ingestions   Fishing gear entanglements  Plastic ingestions  Some turtles you will see are just weak, having suffered from hypothermia or fishing gear entanglements.  Next: we walked along the Sea Turtle Information Boards. With information of all the 3 turtle species' behavior, a map of the Mediterranean Sea, information on the nesting grounds and more. By now, the small children in our group got restless and therefore we had to move on.  Clearly it was too much data for our lively little boys, even though thousands