Greeks to poison up to 15,000 stray dogs before the Olympics

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Greeks to poison up to 15,000 stray dogs before the Olympics

By David Harrison

 

Thousands of stray dogs will be poisoned ahead of next month's

Olympic Games in

Athens despite a campaign by the RSPCA to prevent their slaughter.

 

The animal welfare charity says that the strays will be killed

because the Greek

authorities fear that the sight of packs of dogs roaming the streets

will damage

their efforts to use the Games to show the world that their country

is modern

and civilised.

 

There are an estimated 15,000 stray dogs in Athens and although the

government

has taken some action to remove them from the streets without

killing them, the

RSPCA says that local authorities will not have the resources or the

commitment

to round up the animals and keep them in shelters during the Games.

 

Officially, the Greek authorities say that there will be no mass

poisoning and

the Athens Olympics Committee has asked animal welfare groups to

help round up

the dogs.

 

There are however, only one or two shelters in Athens that can take

dogs and

they are already overcrowded, so the Greeks face a choice of leaving

the dogs

roaming the streets during the Olympics or poisoning them.

 

Greece's fledgling animal welfare groups said that the mass

slaughter of strays

had already begun. Eighty dogs were recently found dead in the

coastal resort of

Saronida, where some members of the British team are expected to

stay.

 

One animal welfare activist said: " There has been a big increase in

poisonings

recently and we expect it to rise sharply as the Games get closer.

We are doing

what we can, with a lot of help from international organisations

such as the

RSPCA, but we are fighting against a culture that is deeply

entrenched. " The

RSPCA has campaigned hard to improve animal welfare in Greece and in

particular

to end the practice of poisoning strays to control their numbers.

 

The Greek government has expressed a desire to give more protection

to animals

and introduced tougher laws last year. Antonia Kanellopoulou, the

deputy mayor

of Athens, said: " Stray animals need our love. "

 

The legislation has, however, had little effect and the RSPCA says

that many

local authorities in Athens and other areas hosting Olympic events

will use the

traditional method of poisoning the animals to clear the streets

before the

Games begin on August 13.

 

David Bowles of RSPCA International, who recently returned from

Athens where

RSPCA inspectors were training Greek officials to catch and treat

strays

humanely, said: " We are seriously concerned that thousands of dogs

will be

poisoned so that Greece can show that Athens is a pristine modern

city. They

don't have the manpower or the shelters to round up all the dogs. A

lot of the

local authorities simply don't know how to deal with dogs humanely.

We have put

a lot of effort into helping them to change their ways, but the

results have

been very patchy. We would like to see them using private shelters

so that all

the dogs can be given homes during the Olympics but it looks like

that is not

going to happen. "

 

Mr Bowles said that mass poisoning was " barbaric " and a " short-term

fix " that

would not solve the problem of strays. Another senior RSPCA official

said:

" Greece's success in the European football championships in Portugal

and now

hosting the Olympic Games has undoubtedly boosted its prestige.

 

" They are desperate to make a success of the Games coming back to

where they

started. But they cannot call themselves civilised if they continue

to poison

dogs. "

 

Carol McBeth, the director of the London-based Greek Animal Welfare

Fund, said

that she was concerned about many areas outside the centre of

Athens. " I think

we may see poisonings in the places where the cycling, football and

equestrian

events are being held, " she said.

 

" They will be very keen to make sure that those areas are clear and

they don't

have shelters for the dogs. "

 

Poisoning animals is a criminal offence in Greece, but it is such a

traditional

method of controlling the stray population that many local

authorities turn a

blind eye to the practice and actively engage in it themselves.

 

Greece does not have the same tradition of caring for pets as

Britain and many

animals are dumped when owners become bored with them. It is illegal

to have

animals put down in Greece and there is no tradition of taking in

strays.

 

The problem has been made worse by a " macho mentality " that finds

it " unnatural "

to neuter cats and dogs, although a neutering programme introduced

by the

government has had some success in Athens.

 

Anastase Scopelitis, the Greek ambassador to London, who is in

Greece on

holiday, was unavailable for comment. An embassy official

said: " Greece takes

animal welfare seriously and our government has taken measures to

improve our

standards. "