A rare sight greeted those who were at Epanomi beach in Thessaloniki yesterday, as a freshwater coypu remained motionless, staring at them. The coypu stayed completely still for hours at the spot, visibly exhausted from its swim in the sea.

“Geronimo,” as he was named by his rescuers, is believed to have either become disoriented and entered the sea, or to have been carried away from a river after heavy rainfall and, with the help of sea currents, ended up on Epanomi beach. The animal weighs seven kilos and is considered to be young.

What is unusual, however, is that the coypu lives in rivers—i.e. in freshwater conditions—and it is extremely strange how it ended up swimming in the sea and ultimately managed to reach the shore.

Members of an animal welfare association alerted the well-known wildlife handler of the “Rescue and Reintroduction into the Wild” team, Stelios Geronymakis, who rushed to the scene and recovered the coypu.

“It is not a beaver but a coypu. It doesn’t have the flat tail that beavers have, and in appearance it looks like a large rat. However, its anatomy is otherwise similar (to a beaver), its teeth are large, orange, and about three finger-widths long,” Mr. Geronymakis described to thestival.gr.

As he explained, the coypu was found yesterday on Epanomi beach. “I was informed yesterday that a mysterious animal had been staying in the same spot on the beach for three hours. I went there with a net and caught it,” he said, adding that it was sitting motionless on the shore.

“It was sitting still right where the waves break on the shore, and when I went to catch it, it tried to go back into the sea,” Mr. Geronymakis noted, explaining that it is “strange how the coypu ended up there, as it is a species that lives in freshwater,” such as lakes and rivers.

Mr. Geronymakis estimates that the animal may have been swept away after heavy rainfall from a river that flows into the sea, such as the Axios or the Aliakmonas, “and eventually ended up on Epanomi beach through the currents.”

As he said, immediately after catching it with a net, he took it to his home in order to warm it up, as the young coypu “was shaking like a fish,” and he even placed a heating pad under the cage to warm it.

For now, the coypu “is not moving much,” still appears frightened, perhaps also exhausted from its sea ordeal, while Mr. Geronymakis said he will contact the Veterinary School of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki so he can “transfer it there for further examination, provided of course that the school has the staff to handle this particular animal.”