Authorities leave food for animals amid winter

ISTANBUL

Turkish authorities have started a drive to protect stray and wild animals from heavy snowfall and storms that have lasted for nearly a week and severely affected life across the country.

Several public institutions and municipalities supplemented the wildlife with food to prevent the species that have been suffering from food shortages from starving in harsh winter conditions.

Within the scope of these efforts, the General Directorate of Nature Conservation and National Parks (DKMP) left more than 300,000 kilograms of feed to nature for wild animals only in the last month.

With this figure, the amount of feed left to nature in the last two years has reached 3 million kilograms.

Participating in the efforts, Turkey’s Agriculture and Forestry Minister Bekir Pakdemirli and his team left 200 kilograms of dry grass and 150 kilograms of wheat and 100 kilograms of carrots in the countryside of Ankara’s Beypazarı district where severe weather conditions continue.

In various parts of the country, police, gendarmerie teams and Turkish Red Crescent volunteers continued their efforts to leave food for wild animals, in particular mammals such as brown bears, wild cats, lynxes, wild boars, foxes and badgers.

For bird species, grain products were left at special points belonging to public institutions. Local authorities and municipalities have undertaken the duty of leaving fodder for stray animals.