Greek Animal Rescue - Hunting Dogs Article

Thessaloniki’s pet cemetery

By Cordelia Madden
20th Feb 2004

‘Despicable’, say welfare workers. A local veterinarian describes the Animal Shelter of Northern Greece as a place where dogs are ‘condemned to a slow death’. Yet the authorities aren’t taking action.

Before the January 21 broadcast of the programme Ç ¢ëëç ÌÝñá (The Other Day), ET3 state television ran a trailer warning parents that the following scenes should not be watched by young children. The footage, some of which had been deliberately blurred to spare viewers, showed dead and dying dogs filmed at the Animal Shelter of Northern Greece, a donation-funded operation run by 72-year-old Jimmy Samaras.

Television viewers were appalled by the footage, which showed canines bleeding and bald from mange (a skin disease caused by parasitic

Bald Dog

Many of the dogs at Samaras’ ‘shelter’ have lost their hair from either Kala-azar or mange. This bald Pitbull-cross is also
suffering from sunburn

mites), suffering with maggot-infested wounds, in advanced stages of Leishmaniasis (Kala-azar) and crippled or paralysed. It exposed Samaras - a man who is usually portrayed in the media as a St Francis of Assisi figure - as, at best, sadly negligent and, at worst, intentionally callous. But the viewers would be even more shocked to learn that, in the four weeks that have passed since the expose, little has been done by the authorities to rectify the situation.

Maria Topalidou, the ET reporter who filmed the footage, said that on February 12 public prosecutor Panagiotis Ioannidis gave an order to the municipality of Mikra and the local police force to investigate the ‘shelter’, but there has been no response yet. “Everything is frozen until after the elections,” Theodoros Goustilis, mayor of Mikra (the municipality east of Thessaloniki where the ‘shelter’ is located), told the Athens News.

The authorities have had ample time to act. In the 15 years that Samaras has been running his facility, the local authorities have received numerous complaints about the ‘shelter’, according to the Coalition in Defence of Animals in Greece, an umbrella organisation comprising 25 welfare societies. The latest charge was made on September 4, when Vesna Jones of the UK-based society Greek Animal Rescue (GAR) sent a letter of complaint and a video (that she had filmed undercover at the Shelter of Northern Greece on July 7) to Agriculture Minister George Drys, Thessaloniki Nomarch Panagiotis Psomiadis, director of the Thessaloniki Veterinary Directorate Menelaos Patikas and other government officials.

Menelaos Patikas played down the situation: “I have visited the Stegi Zoon several times, most recently after receiving the [GAR] video,” he said. “We went to check if the dogs were being tortured, and we found that they were relatively okay.”

Commenting on the dogs on GAR’s tape, which showed scenes similar to the ET3 footage, Patikas said that “the specific dogs shown in the video had been treated and healed”. He did say, though, that Samaras’ land is “contaminated and very overpopulated”.

Katerina Tzoli, a lawyer who volunteered at the Stegi Zoon until January 2004, says that there is no veterinary care whatsoever at the ‘shelter’. “No animals received veterinary treatment during the year I volunteered there,” she says, calling the situation “despicable”. “Samaras says he has no money to pay a vet. Dogs are neither sterilised nor vaccinated,” she states. “[I saw a] box of medicines they had for the dogs, and they had expired six years ago. No dogs get out alive”, says Tzoli, as Samaras does not allow any animals in his ‘care’ to be rehomed.

George Alatzas, president of the Small Animals Veterinary Association of Northern Greece, does not contest how appalling the situation is. “The dogs are condemned to a slow death there,” he says. “They go in with one complaint and within a short period have any number of other problems.” Alatzas says his association (comprised of private vets) has offered assistance, but notes they cannot do anything with Samaras still in charge, as “he will not co-operate with anyone”.

Passing the buck

According to law 3170 for companion and stray animals, passed in July 2003, municipalities and communities are responsible for the collection (and subsequent vaccination, sterilisation and relocation or release) of stray dogs. Despite this legislation, the municipality shrugs off responsibility. “It’s not an issue for the municipality,” says Mayor Goustilis, “it has to go to the prefecture.”

“The officials’ reluctance to get involved is typical, in that nobody now wants to take responsibility for the mess they too helped to create,” fumes Jones. “Samaras was ‘doing them a favour’ by removing unwanted strays from the streets, but now these strays [need] help, the authorities all just pass the buck.”

The mayors of Thermi and Mikra say they help Samaras by donating food, but they do not ask him to come and pick up strays. “He’s well known in the area,” says Goustilis, “people phone him directly when they find strays.”

Jimmy Samaras, with ‘rescued’ kittens

They insist there is no question of giving money, as has been alleged. Mayor Papadopoulos of Thermi told the Athens News: “Every month we pay for a truckload of food to go to the shelter - at least that way we know it’s getting to the dogs.”

Estimates of how many dogs Samaras keeps range from 300 (Jones, Tzoli, Alatzas) to 700 (Samaras himself). The piece of land on which Samaras and the dogs live belongs to Eurobank, and Topalidou believes that the 72-year-old uses the large number of dogs as leverage to keep the bank from evicting him. He also uses the dogs to intimidate the authorities, according to Tzoli: “He threatens that he will open the door and let the dogs out. If the situation doesn’t improve within the next month, however, I will go myself and let them out. It’s better for them to be killed on the roads than to die in that Dachau.”

Samaras can also be physically threatening, say both Jones and Tzoli. The latter claims that Samaras tried to strangle her last year when she attempted to take a puppy to be rehomed, and she alleges that he always carries a gun. Topalidou hopes the public prosecutor will finish his investigation quickly so that a team of vets can go in and treat the animals that can still be rescued.

But as Jones points out, “had the authorities taken action when I first sent them the report and video, the situation would not have deteriorated to the point [seen on the ET3 footage] where cannibalism is taking place. Those dogs live with death hanging over them - how can this barbaric situation be allowed to continue?”

GAR Contact:	Email:info@greekanimalrescue.com	Voice: +44 (0)20 8203 1956	Fax +44 (0)20 8202 8809
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