A flamingo died a few days ago from bullets from a shotgun in Lake Karla, one of the country’s largest wetlands that brings together rare and protected species.

The dead animal has already been examined by experts, while according to the head of the management unit of protected areas of Thessaly, Dimitris Michalakis, “the incident has been repeated twice before when the Management Body still existed.”

As the “bad practice of an unscrupulous hunter” was described by Mr. Michalakis the event, stressed that it is not a matter of protecting the area, since the species itself is protected and should not be hunted while stressing that of course not all the industry, not all hunters operate in this way, but these particular ones acted in this way and “thought that they could hunt the flamingo as a target because it is not even a prey”.

Regarding the competent bodies, he stressed that “all the bodies in Greece have been brought together under the umbrella of the Natural Environment and Climate Change Organization and this way a uniform approach is provided to the protected areas of the Natura network and better coordination than having different policies pursued by the boards of the former bodies.”

Asked about the measures but also about the controls, he noted that “obviously to find this particular animal dead the area is controlled,” adding that “the person who does this is doing it with the knowledge that he is breaking the law and is taking measures. So you would imagine that there can’t be a 24-hour guard in every square kilometer of the area. Especially our area is huge. It covers the whole of Thessaly.”

In closing, he stressed that there is a framework for protection, giving the example of the game guard program that does similar checks focused on each prefecture, but“there are some who think they can operate beyond the law.”