There are almost 4 million homeless animals in Greece

Stray animals are a chronic and painful problem in Greece, with the number sadly now approaching four.

The flow of new homeless animals in Greece is “growing every day,” Natasha Bombolaki, president of the Panhellenic Animal Welfare Federation Nemesis, tells the publication. ethnos.gr.

In fact, in Greece there is no official registration of homeless animals. Thus, the community of animal lovers for about three or four years has in its “hands” the number of stray dogs and cats, which has already approached 4 million animals.

This number was officially confirmed in 2022 by a study by the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH), says Ms Bombolaki, adding: “That is, the official registration currently only exists from AUTH.”

“Today we are talking about a figure approaching four million. The rate of new stray animals in Greece is growing every day, and we see this from our experience and our actions as animal lovers activists who protect stray animals,” emphasizes the president ” Nemesis”.

The number of homeless animals is growing every day

In particular, as Natasha Bombolaki explains, “our position is that the number of homeless animals is increasing every day.”

“It comes from the fact that people kick dogs and cats out of the house – these are the main categories involved in the phenomenon of millions of homeless animals in a European country,” she explains.

“We are the only European country with such a dizzying number of homeless animals,” emphasizes Ms. Bombolaki.

“Measures taken by all governments have not yielded results.”

Every day animal protection associations, doctors, citizens – volunteers who try to help find thousands of kittens, puppies, adult animals. Unfortunately, “the flow does not stop, because the measures taken by all governments for 25 years have suffered a catastrophic failure, and yet they continue to this day to follow the wrong recipes and tactics, and they themselves see it, we all see it, that homeless animals live among us.”

According to the president of “Nemesis”, homeless animals are everywhere, mainly in the Greek province and Attica – except for the closed city.

Suggestions for resolving the issue

As Natasha Bombolaki explains, the “solution” that failed and followed by all governments so far is to fund municipalities to set up nurseries.

“We see that although in Greece both the municipalities and other individuals are overflowing with nurseries, the number of homeless animals on the street is constantly growing, so the nursery is not a solution to the problem. It can take 300 animals, but thousands remain outside,” she says characteristically .

“The solution they don’t want to see is that every municipality should have a municipal veterinary clinic, because to build a nursery under the conditions required by European law, 500,000 euros are needed, and for a municipal veterinary clinic, for example, 40,000. The nursery, which has about 100 animals annually, costs 50,000 euros, and the municipal veterinary clinic will only need the salary of a veterinarian and some expenses related to medicines and supplies.”

Municipalities that do not have municipal veterinary clinics, and in fact there are very few, “take a certain amount from their annual budget” in order to fulfill the obligation of the law to sterilize stray animals. For example, the municipality of Chania “left” 40,000 euros for sterilization.

“This amount goes to private veterinarians. The prices are such that for 40,000 euros you sterilize about 200 animals,” says Ms Bombolaki.

Therefore, “it’s a waste of money. You sterilize the minimum number of stray animals to be “was by law”, while a large number of stray animals are inexhaustible, multiply, and every year a new number is added with all kinds of animal rejection, and thus we will never reach a drastic population limit.”

“We can’t understand why schools don’t introduce a mandatory lesson that talks about the respect that we must show the environment and everything that lives in it, and therefore animals,” she adds.

Another step that could contribute to solving the problem, according to Ms. Bombolaki, is to solve the problem that there are laws that are not being implemented. For example, “while microchipping has been mandatory since 2003, today in 2023, only 40% of pet owners have microchipped their pets.”

A constant request to the animal police

“We propose that the law come into force with the constant request of animal welfare organizations: the creation in EL.AS. a special body “Animal Police” which should exist in all prefectures.” It will be responsible for stray animals, as well as “for the enforcement and control of laws, and, of course, it will deal exclusively with abuses.”

The last measure they should take, according to Natasha Bombolaki, concerns the fact that for many years “thousands of puppies and kittens a year are illegally imported through channels that someone enters our country, which illegal importers cannot then sell and leave them on the street.” This also applies to the illegal breeding of companion animals, she said.

“Almost 60% of Greek private catteries illegally breed pets, beagles, chihuahuas, decorative cat breeds, etc. If these channels are not closed, we will never see a positive result,” she says.

Extreme forms of torture and cruelty to animals

At the same time, news of animal cruelty today is both plentiful and horrific. As Natasha Bombolaki confirms, “Unfortunately, we now have extreme forms of torture and cruelty to animals.”

She adds that “people are bullying these weak creatures more and more (…). We’re seeing an increase even though some forms of abuse have become a criminal offence.”

“While this has happened institutionally, in practice we see that these cases, even if they are criminal offenses, are shelved by local prosecutors, as a result of which any punishment comes after several years, and the criminals at that time walk free and continue to treat animals cruelly,” she emphasizes.

Finally, she emphasizes that for 20 years “we have also been working at the institutional level to convince governments, ministers, parties, authorities, presenting realistic and scientific proposals.”

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