At The Mercy Of The Flames

Animals are bearing the brunt of the fires that have ravaged the Brazilian rainforests – but heroes are at hand

- Ueslei Marcelino

XITA, a tiny monkey with sad brown eyes, clutches her newborn tightly. Both are fighting for their lives.

Vets at the Clinidog clinic in the Amazon city of Porto Velho, Brazil, believe the mother and baby were run over by a car as they fled fires raging across the world’s largest rainforest.

“She arrived stressed, screaming and smeared with blood,” says Carlos Henrique Tiburcio, the owner of the clinic, as he wraps the pair in a small white cloth.

Tiburcio and his team are on a mission to save animals such as Xita.

Creatures of the Amazon, one of Earth’s most biodiverse habitats, face an ever-growing threat as loggers and farms advance further into the rainforest.

In the dry season ranchers and land speculators set fires to clear deforested woodland for pasture. Blazes can rage out of control, fuelled by the swirling wind and dry foliage.

Panicked and terrified wildlife flee the smoke and flames and animals – many of them weak and dying – are brought to Tiburcio’s clinic where four volunteers work tirelessly to save them.

“This time of year, when fires are a constant threat due to the absence of rain, the animals seek shelter in desperation to escape death and end up in the city, putting themselves at risk of being run over or captured,” says Marcelo Andreani, whose job is to rescue injured animals and bring them to the clinic.