France: Le Village Des Tortues

The first thing that struck me was how old the place looked. I later learned more about the history of the Village and of the organisation that created it, which explained a lot about the appearance of it all. Let me take a few (or more) lines to break it down for you. It all started in the 1970s when Bernard Devaux, the now-president of the organisation and director of the Village, took a sudden interest to tortoises, and especially the French ‘Hermann tortoise’ (pictured). After reading about their rapidly decreasing numbers, he decided to take action and create, along with British scientist David Stubbs, an organisation dedicated to the protection of the Hermann tortoise (the only existing organisation of its kind). They called it SOPTOM, or Station d'Observation et de Protection des Tortues et de leurs Milieux. It was created in 1986, and two years later, the Tortoise Village opened. They only had a small budget, which explains the flimsiness of the place, and did not, and still do not to this day, receive any financial help whatsoever from the State, therefore relying solely on donations and the money the visitors brought in. The goal of the Village was the conservation of the tortoise above all. The SOPTOM created in 1989 a clinic where sick and injured tortoises were nursed back to health. All of the tortoises that could not be released back in the wild (for genetic or health purposes, or because they had been used to a life in captivity and would not survive in the wild) were placed in enclosures in the Village for the public to see, and most importantly to learn about. One of the important missions of the Village des Tortues is to raise public awareness about the fact that tortoises are wild animals that are not meant for a captive life. Over the decades, the Village, being the only tortoise protection center in Europe, welcomed more and more animals, coming from police seizures of illegally trafficked tortoises or from individuals who didn’t want their pet tortoise anymore and abandoned it. As a result, the Village is now host to approximately 1200 tortoises and terrapins from all over the world, Mediterranean as well as exotic, and aims to release as many as possible in their country of origin each year.

This is what a typical day would look like: at 9AM, we would open the gates for the visitors, then directly go to the feeding area while one of us stayed at the register to welcome any visitors. The feeding area was where we prepared the food for all of the tortoises in the park. Their food consisted in lettuce, fruits and vegetables that we received daily from supermarkets when they had not been sold. Generally, a tortoise’s diet is composed of 80% salad and 20% fruits and vegetables. For African tortoises, we also added a large portion of hay. After cutting up and preparing many crates of food, which often resulted in very cold fingers (winter didn’t seem to want to leave), we would set off on the daily adventure that was feeding the animals. Yes, ADVENTURE. We would usually feed all of the exotic tortoises first. They were located in the two greenhouses of the park and also in separate enclosures, each equipped with a terrarium to keep them warm at night. The tricky part of this was having to carry two big crates of food and give out the food without having the crates touch the ground for 

hygienic reasons. I swear I have never more felt like a ninja than while doing that. In addition to that, if you think a tortoise is slow, then you’ve obviously never been face to face with a dozen Sulcata tortoises while carrying lettuce. Because let me assure you, they CHARGE (and climb on top of each other as they wait for you to enter the enclosure, as pictured). I quickly became an expert at hopping from side to side to avoid my ankles being crushed by a hungry 60 kilogram dinosaur (quite literally, actually). After having fed the exotic tortoises, which is quite a task in itself, we would move on to feeding the Mediterranean tortoises. Most of the tortoises of the park are from the Mediterranean region and are visible by the public from a path. However, in order to feed them, we had to navigate through the maze of enclosures. Well. I’ll admit that I don’t have the most acute sense of directions, but let me tell you, I definitely got lost in there a couple of times. By the time all of the tortoises had been fed, it was lunch time. It’s safe to say that there was never a dull moment during feeding. At around noon, we would have lunch along with the scientists, the interns and the director of the Village, Bernard Devaux. He made lunch for us every day and I think I speak for everyone when I say that you leave your volunteering experience at the Village des Tortues with more kilograms than you came with.

Every week, each volunteer has a specific area of the park assigned to them (for example: one of the greenhouses, the clinic, the exotic enclosures, etc…). After lunch, each volunteer would set out to take care of their assigned area by, to give a few examples, cleaning out the excrements, dirty hay and leftover food, changing the water for the tortoises, making sure the ponds were full for the terrapins and giving baths to injured and sick tortoises in the clinic. Of course, while each person had an assigned area, we often helped each other get the work done, which made cleaning out poop much more enjoyable. As the evening approached, the person in charge of the exotic tortoises had to make sure that they had all gone back into their terrariums, turn on the heating for the night and lock the door. Very often, a few of them had not gone inside, leaving us with the task of carrying them in. Believe me, that is not easy when the animal weighs more than you and is very much determined to stay right where it is.

After having closed up the park to the visitors, we would set out to make sure that everything was in order for the night, to close the greenhouses and to cover up the windows of the terrarium in order to keep the heat in.  After everything was done for the day, all of the volunteers - all five of us - would hang out in the kitchen, eat dinner and relax after a hard day's work, which often resulted in hazardous baking, awkward dancing and uncontrollable laughter.