Greece
far behind in Animal Welfare
By Robin Roth
Hania, Crete - With the closure of Crete's only animal shelter in the imminent future, Noah's Ark director Silke Wrobel is steadfast in her fight for Crete's castoff animals.
"The Cretan people don't give a damn," says Wrobel, doctoring a Doberman dog and administering an IV to one of seven puppies abandoned on her doorstep.
A registered nurse in her native Germany, Wrobel believes Greeks are negligent about animal care. "The only person working for animals," she says, "is me."
Animal protection is a hard job, especially on the shelter's 12 acrid acres in the isolated hills of the Akrotiri Peninsula above Hania. Minoan civilization might have had its start on Crete, but nowadays you won't find such elevated ideals on the street. Abandoned and abused cats and canines roam rampantly, heightening the problem of overpopulation in Greece among homeless dogs and cats.
Currently, Noah's Ark is home to more than 600 dogs, cats, birds and donkeys. Most of the animals arrived at the shelter with various signs of illness and abuse: an emaciated cat is found fully penetrated by an arrow; a puppy is poisoned and must be nursed back to health. Wrobel's own dog, Babe, was found with 14 bullets shot in the face. "What will happen to animal protection if they close me down? This is the biggest animal welfare organization in Greece, so to shut down is a tragedy."
Some neighbors think otherwise. As controversial as the animal rights agenda she represents, complaints against Wrobel range from excessive noise at the shelter to the amount of animals kept on the property. Although Noah's Ark is a member of many European animal rights groups, such as Action For Animals, a British non-profit agency established to help the animals of Crete, Wrobel has been accused of collecting and selling animals abroad for vivisection. Wrobel denies the charges and says she has been beaten, threatened and robbed by her detractors. "But my biggest problem is the landlord," she says.
In January, the shelter must pay more than 75 million drachma or move. So what will save a sinking ship? "What I do for tourism is so big," she says. The only reason they don't touch me is they are afraid to lose money because of tourism. But tourists are not blind."
Zeke Guenther, an American tourist from Portland, Ore., says he was shocked by the situation of animals in Greece. "Nobody wants the responsibility here," he says. "Greeks know we aren't from this country because we are feeding the animals." Tourism has been the life force for stray dogs and cats throughout Greece.
In Santorini, thousands of strays are adopted each summer by vacationing tourists, thanks to organizations such as the Animal Welfare Association of Santorini. But when taverna tables are empty and tourists go home, the animals starve and are routinely killed with rat poison or food laced with bits of glass, according to European animal rights organizations and the Animal Welfare Association.
"The foreign community knows what is going on with animals in Greece," Wrobel says. State run animal protection agencies are a mark of advanced nations everywhere. If Greece wants to be a functioning member of the European Community, the animals must be better cared for. In addition, fundraising efforts on the island repeatedly prove nil.
"There are never any Greek donations," she says, although two local tavernas and the Greek naval base at Souda sometimes supply the shelter with scraps. Wrobel retrieves the food nightly, driving into the early hours of the morning; the stench of spaghetti and old souvlaki permeate the back of her van. Crete's former mayor Georgios Tzanakakis donated number plates for the vehicle, which was donated by a German animal welfare organization, but Wrobel receives no more state support.
Both Tzanakakis and Chania's new mayor would not comment. The Cretans won't give anything," Wrobel says. "Don't forget Crete was occupied for 300 years by the Turks. The truth is, the roots are so similar where the value of an animal is zero."
Neighbor George Touhouliotis disagrees. A Greek American who spends summers in Hania, Touhouliotis likens animal rights fervor to religious fanaticism. "Greek people consider themselves to be zoophiloi," he says. "As a society, people love animals." Greeks generally consider spaying and neutering cruel, and as a boy in Kastoria, Touhouliotis recalls the horror of witnessing this mindset when he discovered his dog dead, a victim of a police poisoning to control the population of strays. Touhouliotis says Greece needs a better policy for controlling pet overpopulation.
Dr. Vangelis Aeriuiotakis agrees. "Street animals are not easy to collect." The first veterinarian on Crete to open private practice more than 20 years ago, Aeriuiotakis has collected and castrated more than 500 homeless dogs and cats in Hania. The situation for animals in Greece is changing, he says, due to increased veterinary care and organizations such as Noah's Ark. "She's a hard working woman," he says of Wrobel, "working 24 hours a day for animals."
But not everyone is so impressed. Some European veterinarians and volunteers say Wrobel's work borders on cruelty. "This is not animal care," says an Italian volunteer who wishes to remain anonymous. She is horrified at the size of cages used to transport dogs to Germany for adoption. In the past 10 years, Noah's Ark has sent more than 1, 300 animals to new homes in Northern Europe. Some families keep in contact with Wrobel, giving her photos of their adopted pets.
"In America or Germany such working conditions would be unacceptable," says Thomas Busch, a German veterinarian. "But in Greece it is better than nothing. For the animals, it is better to be here. Here they have food and drink." And veterinary care.
Along with Diana Muce, another German veterinarian, Busch arrived at Noah's Ark late last summer for a week of volunteer work. "We came to do castrations," says Muce, making a snipping motion with her fingers. "We hope to do as many as we can."
But as winter approaches, Wrobel's worried less about population control and more about donations needed to keep Noah's Ark afloat. Blankets and old clothes are necessary, along with food, veterinary supplies and funding for Greek language leaflets to distribute to school children.
Dimitris Tanoglidis, owner of the Villa Eleana apartments in the nearby village of Stavros, views the shelter as a service to the island. "It's a good program," he says, and will foster caring attitudes towards animals among young people, eventually encompassing the entire population. "After 10-15 years, the children will change things," he says.
While changing Greek attitudes towards animal welfare can be attributed to advocates such as Wrobel, will altering attitudes eventually put her out of a job? "It is my dream to buy this land," she says. "These animals need to survive. The day I close I will be happy. But until then, I will stand up for the rights of these animals."
For more information: read Green Volunteers: The Worldwide Guide to Volunteer Work in Nature Conservation.
Contact:
Noah's Ark at Agia
Triada,
Akrotiri, Hania, Crete.
Tel/Fax - (0821) 66146.
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