Sea Turtles in Greece

Paola, the story of a sea turtle

The story of "Paola" begins with an injured sea turtle caught in the nets of an Italian fishing boat, and carried to shore, her fate uncertain and her life hanging by a thread. Was it the cooking pot or just a plain brutal death that awaited her? The young daughter of an Italian restaurant owner, who having seen a TV programme about turtle conservation and the work of the Naples Institute for Zoological Research, and seeing the turtle, ran to beg her father to help her rescue it and take it to the Research Centre. Fate again smiled on the turtle and the mission in the dead of night was successful. At the Centre the turtle was nursed back to health and it was later released near Kefalonia island in western Greece.

July 10, 2004. The Observer: Sex antics of UK tourists scare turtles to death

First it was Rhodes, now drunken British holidaymakers are running riot on the beaches of another Greek island, reports the UK newspaper, The Observer. They have outlived dinosaurs, surviving 100 million years of climate change and catastrophic asteroid impacts. Yet Europe's largest refuge for the rare loggerhead turtle faces its gravest threat: the drunken British tourist.

Record numbers of young UK holidaymakers are invading the nesting grounds of the endangered creatures on the Greek island of Zakynthos, where they are blamed for wreaking havoc among one of the turtle's last havens.

Vast stretches of Laganas beach have already been abandoned by turtles this summer as a record 200,000 Britons head to the lively resort nearby.