The ARCA and its wildlife recovery centers

Since its establishment in 1982, the Civic Museum of Natural History of Salento, located in the center of this large territory, felt the lack of a reference structure where wild animals could converge, but also domestic strays in need of veterinary care. In those years the national legislation was scant if not very lacking. The only reference in Italy was the LIPU Recovery Center in Parma, which however did not deal with dogs and cats or sea turtles and cetaceans, but only with avifauna.

At the beginning, it was the Salento CFS station commands that delivered the wild animals to us for species identification and to understand the type of trauma they had in order to identify any crimes (see photo 1).

It was the former Provincial Commander of the CFS, Dr. Raffaele Congedo, and the promoter of the establishment of the Le Cesine Naturalistic Oasis, who stimulated and encouraged this initiative. An initiative that spontaneously continued to grow and develop thanks to the generous availability of young veterinarians, in particular Dr. Pietro Greco, who soon coordinated an increasingly large group of colleagues (see photo 2). In 1987, when the museum was moved to an old factory with an adjoining large tree-lined garden, with no small sacrifice, aviaries, aquariums and reptile houses began to be built to accommodate native and wild fauna. Subsequently, during the winter months, private swimming pools or temporarily unused hotels along the coast were made available, essential structures for housing and caring for cetaceans. In particular, dolphins of the Stenella species, which in those years were very numerous in the Ionian and lower Adriatic (see photos 3,4).

But soon the Center had its own orientation and specialization in favor of the care, protection and reintroduction of sea turtles and tortoises. More and more frequently, in particular the Guardia di Finanza, entrusted us with significant quantities of these animals, which were clandestinely imported from nearby Greece and Albania. In the ARCA center they were cared for, fed, and reproduced regularly. Periodically, in synergy with the CFS, they were repatriated to their countries of origin and reintroduced into their natural environment.