"Wild animals are the victims of decades of neglect of climate scientists' warnings."

On July 7, a fire ravaged 570 hectares near Narbonne [Aude] . Deer, foxes, rabbits, fawns, wild boars, birds of prey, as well as lizards and insects were trapped by the flames. According to Marine Laullon, co-founder of the animal rescue association Wany the Pooh, tearful local residents told her they had heard animals screaming in terror .

At the scene, volunteers found thousands of charred corpses, from hedgehogs reduced to ashes to snakes frozen in a final attempt to escape. The few survivors wandered in a blackened desert, homeless. Others, burned or starving, lay dying for days.

The drought that causes these fires has less dramatic effects in areas that are usually marshy. However, it also wreaks havoc there: insects, birds and amphibians desperately seek water to drink or raise their young , and in the hottest years there is a virtual absence of reproduction for some species.

Since June, another disaster has struck the wetlands of Loire-Atlantique. Affected by botulism, thousands of ducks, moorhens, and herons have been found dead, drowned by a paralysis that prevents them from raising their heads above water. This disease, caused by the proliferation of a bacterium in the warm, stagnant waters, has wiped them out.

The problem isn't just climatic: while drought has shrunk the marshes, water levels have also been lowered to favor fodder crops. The economic interests of livestock farmers have taken precedence over the survival of the marsh's animals. Where life should be abundant, there is now only a grim landscape filled with corpses.

In rivers and stagnant waters, the suffering is silent, but just as lethal. Fish have an internal temperature correlated with that of their environment, and beyond a certain threshold, their stress increases to the point of fatal degradation of their metabolism. Some iconic fish, such as trout or salmon, and most fish in metropolitan France, have difficulty surviving in waters above 25°C.

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