Bolivian firefighters have rescued an anteater while putting out a blaze that's been sweeping through protected areas in the country's east for days.
The animal was found injured in a bushfire at the Sucuará Lake protected area, in Santa Cruz department, earlier this week and taken to a veterinary surgery for medical attention.
"We ran into this animal," said firefighter Victor Hugo Sanchez.
"It's badly wounded and hurt so we brought it into town so these good people can tend to it."
Wildfires raged through the night and left around 14 hectares of terrain burnt across three different protected areas in that region, local media reported.
Footage from Santa Cruz's firefighters showed scorched terrain at the Sucuará Lake in the aftermath.
The annual forest fires in Bolivia have intensified in recent years.
In 2019, nearly 6 million hectares of land was burned across Bolivia. In 2020, it was 4 million hectares, according to the US-based Mongabay environmental science and conservation news platform.
In the first 10 months of 2021, officials said forest fires in Bolivia’s Santa Cruz department razed an area twice the size of Jamaica.
Bolivia's protected areas are home to the isolated Ayoreo indigenous community, as well as jaguars, pumas, anteaters, night monkeys and countless species of plants, animals and birds.
ABC/Reuters
