LAMPEDUSA (Italy): The island hospital is small, sparsely equipped and very often the patients are so large that they have to be tipped sideways to get them to the operating table.

Fortunately, the patients are tough enough to withstand being knocked against a doorframe — they are protected by a solid shell bigger than a manhole cover.

It takes more than rough handling to kill off a loggerhead turtle.

Tough they may be, but the species is endangered because of the destruction of its breeding grounds — the once isolated beaches which are increasingly built-up and disturbed — and the fishing fleets that catch or drown them by mistake.

Only a couple of turtles now come each year to lay eggs on Lampedusa, Italy’s most southerly island. But hundreds more are found injured in the area and the lucky ones make it to the turtle hospital to be cured and studied by volunteer vets and curious zoologists.

“They are not physically beautiful,” says Daniela Freggi who established the WWF (the former World Wildlife Fund) turtle sanctuary in the 1990s after previously having worked with dolphins.

“At first, turtles weren’t interesting. They didn’t laugh, they didn’t talk.” But Freggi grew to be fascinated by the carnivores which can live their solitary lives to be from 50 to 100 years old and migrate thousands of miles through the oceans.

“They live for years, they don’t get on with each other, they can withstand huge injuries and then die for nothing.”

The turtle refuge is temporary home to up to 500 turtles each year. They are kept in a collection of large tanks in the grounds of a former pizzeria, shaded by date palms.—Reuters