Greece gets ready for the return of the Olympics

August 2, 2004 7:17 AM

Greece gets ready for the return of the Olympics by ridding the streets of its stray dogs.don't watch this if you're an animal lover. Or better yet, DO if you can handle it, because it's one of the saddest things i've seen in a long time. Though the government of Athens is denying it is responsible for this, someone is poisoning the city's thousands of stray dogs by putting it in food (naturally, a stray, hungry dog will eat it). The ensuing death does not come quickly. I've always wanted to visit Greece, especially being from a Mediterranean family (experience the roots, and all that) but suffice it to say it's moved to the bottom of the list of places to visit at this point. I've seen better treatment of animals in countries far less developed than Greece.
posted by cadence (57 comments total)

I will not watch the movie, because I can't stand to see things like that.

But I take solace in the knowledge that one day, perhaps a long time from now, we humans will wish that we were treated better by whatever higher beings come down and decide to treat us in the same way that we have treated the rest of nature for all these years.
posted by eas98 at 7:33 AM on August 2, 2004

You'll note stray sheep are getting a free pass.
posted by yerfatma at 7:35 AM on August 2, 2004

As are stray cats. The stray dogs in Athens are horribly treated; almost all of them have scars from fights or disease, no one feeds them (no Greeks, anyway; they tend to hang around touristy places for foreign aid), and some of them are legitimately dangerous and might attack you. The cats, on the other hand, are remarkably well looked after.
posted by kenko at 7:42 AM on August 2, 2004

this is a bit hypocritical, isn't it? i can't find the figures for the usa, but a bit of googling suggested that 22,000 stray dogs are killed every year in the uk.

countries like the uk and the usa round up stray dogs and kill them out of sight. but they're still killed. here in chile that doesn't seem to happen - stray dogs are much more common. coming from the uk, i noticed this. i also noticed that, in general, the stray dogs seem a lot happier than the ones kept as pets. it's not uncommon to find them ill or dead - run over or dying quietly from some disease in a gutter - but isn't that normal for wild animals?

it sounds like greece also has strays. however, because the olympics is, these days, little more than a package for making money and entertaining people from countries that kill stray dogs away from the limelight, they're being pressured into "tidying up". it's hardly the fault of the greeks - they're just meeting your expectations. the only reason this is shocking is that for once you're getting to see the killing that otherwise happens where it can safely be ignored.
posted by andrew cooke at 7:52 AM on August 2, 2004

What a horrible waste of perfectly good meat.
posted by ChasFile at 7:55 AM on August 2, 2004

With your help, the authorities in Greece can hopefully be persuaded to adopt a humane ‘stray control’ policy, by implementing widespread neutering programmes.

Please write to:
Prime Minister, Costas Simitis: [e-mail]
Minister of Agriculture, Mr Georgios Drys: [e-mail]
Minister of Tourism, Mr Dimitrios Georgarakis: [e-mail]
...urging positive action to resolve Greece’s animal welfare problems.

Also please sign an on-line petition .

Other petitions here...

...and really all over the Web.

Go to it!! Please...
posted by Shane at 7:59 AM on August 2, 2004

Pretty much what andrew cook said.

Also, it seems to me that the animal right's activists are to the left what the anti-abortion activists are to the right. Or thereabouts.
posted by magullo at 7:59 AM on August 2, 2004

The cats, on the other hand, are remarkably well looked after.

Don't know about that.
posted by Summer at 8:00 AM on August 2, 2004

cook-e
posted by magullo at 8:00 AM on August 2, 2004

I don't see animal cruelty as something to be flippant about, but that report was needlessly hysterical and patronising. Imagine a report about America starting with 'supposedly the pinnacle of civilization and democracy' then cutting to death row or an inner-city slum. Not really helpful.
posted by Summer at 8:05 AM on August 2, 2004

Just gotta say: there's nothing quite as unnerving as being on a deserted Greek street and having a pack of wild dogs come into view.
posted by smackfu at 8:14 AM on August 2, 2004

I amend: the impression one would tend to get is that it's better to be a stray cat than a stray dog in Athens. I did see people give food to stray cats, which they never did for dogs.
posted by kenko at 8:15 AM on August 2, 2004

it to say it's moved to the bottom of the list of places to visit at this point.

You're boycotting a visit to the entire country of Greece because someone is killing stray dogs? C'mon now. Can I have your plane ticket?
posted by dhoyt at 8:15 AM on August 2, 2004

I can't look at the link, regardless of what's there, and yet it's made me sadder than anything we've had posted here in a long, long time.

One my favorite memories of Greece is the happy, obviously fed-by-tourists shepherd mutt who accompianed me on my tour of the theatre at Epidaurus. Everywhere I went, he went. When I sat, he sat patiently, waiting for me. He followed me onto the orchestra and "spoke" on command, so I could demonstrate to him the power of his own voice in that holy place. He was just one of literally dozens of dogs, all over Greece, that I befriended during that stay. I'm not so maudlin nor sentimental that I don't realize that wild dogs can be dangerous to humans, and I freely admit there were dogs I thought it best to hold back from. But I was never really afraid, nor do I think depite my faux-bravery that either I or anyone I was with was ever in any real danger from them. I only wish the people that I encountered on my trip had been half as friendly and accomodating as these "dangerous dogs."

People are... stupid creatures. They do stupid, stupid things. Every day, all the time, without regard for the consequences. The Greek destruction of these "canine ambassadors of good will" is just more evidence to me why my lifelong preference for the canine over the human is just plain good sense.
posted by JollyWanker at 8:16 AM on August 2, 2004

OK, I am Greek and I'll step up here for a second: Greece should have a better animal control policy, no question about that. But, the stray dog situation in metropolitan areas is out of control, more so than you guys can imagine: In suburban areas of Athens it's not uncommon to see packs of stray dogs (10, 20, more) hunting at night. Let's not mention that all the strays are not quite potty-trained and even city side-walks can be, er, mine-fields. Letting out your kids to play or even taking your own dog for a walk becomes a bit of a gamble, for no good reason. Stray cats don't have these issues (and are actually a great reason Athens has no rat problem).

So, last year or so, the city of Athens attempted to actually gather up the strays and kill them humanely to make the streets safer. The Greek animal lovers staged protests, got on TV complaining about the policy and ended up killing it. The middle-aged spokeslady of the Greek equivalent of PETA, actually went on TV saying that their members take care of these dogs by putting out food for them (but *not* actually adopting any, or paying them to have them spayed or anything).

Now, some vigilante probably had enough and is doing the same thing in a less controlled and humane fashion. Despicable, yes, but to be expected.
posted by costas at 8:23 AM on August 2, 2004

The National Council on Pet Population Study and policy has are some basic statistics for the U.S. pet population. These are a little old--1994 to 1997--but I don't know of any reason off-hand there would be a substantial difference. Here are some additional estimates from the Humane Society. According to the NCPPSP survery, every year over 4 million animals enter "shelters" in the United States, and about 2/3 of those are euthanized. The Human Society gives larger numbers, with between 6 and 8 million animals entering shelter, and between 3 and 6 million being euthanized.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 8:26 AM on August 2, 2004

JollyWanker, thanks for the story.
posted by yerfatma at 8:38 AM on August 2, 2004

People are... stupid creatures. They do stupid, stupid things. Every day, all the time, without regard for the consequences. The Greek destruction of these "canine ambassadors of good will" is just more evidence to me why my lifelong preference for the canine over the human is just plain good sense.

I agree that people are sometimes stupid but not for the reason you say. Feral dogs should be killed as they are a huge danger to people. I spent a harrowing night in West Virginia campground being terrorized by feral dogs. They have zero fear of people and the predatory instincts of wolves. My dog cowered and whimpered in the tent all night long because even it could tell the difference between a domestic dog and a feral dog.

So you got lucky JollyWanker and the dog you encountered was likely not wild for very long. When you encounter a feral pack of hungry goodwill ambassadors when you have no table scraps and no escape you will probably recant your preference for all dogs over people.

Spay, neuter and euthanize. Oh and fine the freal dog feeders too... because that is just asinine.
posted by srboisvert at 8:40 AM on August 2, 2004

When I was at Texas A&M, the College of Vet. Medicine there started a great program, the Aggie Feral Cat Alliance of Texas. The purpose of the program is to capture, tag and spay or neuter the feral cats on campus. The program does not, however, euthanize the cats. I wish there was some effort to adopt that kind of program on a larger scale.
posted by monju_bosatsu at 8:45 AM on August 2, 2004

hmm. maybe something does happen in chile because you don't get large packs of dogs. or maybe it's that people are so much poorer that you don't get so much discarded food here (that sounds odd, but i really notice food on the streets in the west after living here).

i think my argument was too simple (but then i was expecting people to disagree).
posted by andrew cooke at 8:54 AM on August 2, 2004

Bucharest had (has) the same problem (with a solution along the same lines). Wild urban dogs are not pets who need a home. They're vicious and diseased and hunt in surreal cross-breed packs. You can't pass judgement on Athenians unless you also are stalked by animals on your walks around the neighbourhood and feel more comfortable with a stick in your hands. What's sad is not that they dealt with the problem, but that they only bothered to deal with it when the rest of the world paid attention.
posted by loquax at 8:59 AM on August 2, 2004

Shall I put up some photos of mangled children for balance?

Costas is right, the fucking PETA loons ruined it for everyone and now a vigilante is taking matters into his own hands because of government/social failure. Another reason to hate PETA.
posted by skallas at 9:01 AM on August 2, 2004

hey, dhoyt - you could surely have my plane ticket, if i had one... there's a whole lotta the world i haven't visited yet (for the record, stray cats on the Sinai peninsula get the same treatment, except that all the tourists feed them) but i think i'd really rather go somewhere else.

i really hate the argument that animals should be killed because they are a 'huge danger to people' (this is like saying deer populations need to be 'thinned out' - maybe if we'd stop tearing down the woods to build cookie cutter houses for people desperate to jump social classes we'd not have to worry about this). i'm inclined to believe the human race is a virus that affects the planet much like AIDS affects us - we're an unstoppable disease.
posted by cadence at 9:05 AM on August 2, 2004

so that's how they're going to finish the stadium - a dog-skin roof!
posted by quarsan at 9:07 AM on August 2, 2004

Spay, neuter and euthanize. Oh and fine the freal dog feeders too... because that is just asinine.

And while we're at it, let's spay and neuter the morons that throw their dogs out to roam the streets in the first place. Ok, I don't imagine it takes much for a feral population to become self-sustaining, but the problem starts somewhere.
posted by normy at 9:11 AM on August 2, 2004

almost all of them have scars from fights or disease, no one feeds them (no Greeks, anyway; they tend to hang around touristy places for foreign aid), and some of them are legitimately dangerous and might attack you.

Sounds like the policy is good, then, even if the methods are questionable and might be improved upon.
posted by rushmc at 9:23 AM on August 2, 2004

cadence: i'm inclined to believe the human race is a virus that affects the planet much like AIDS affects us - we're an unstoppable disease.

No offense, but you are free to become inert matter anytime you choose. Truly, if you believed this virus idea you wouldn't be here.

This is the classic 'specism is bad' argument, which tries to convince people that humans are worthless and should not be defended. Sorry, but the point of human civilization is to keep humanity going. This doesn't mean an extremist "pave over everything" mentality, but it does mean one has to take action on public dangers. The irony here is that the PETA extremists were so angered at the plan to gas 10,000 dogs that the government backed off. Now there are wild dog packs roaming Athens. We don't need extremists of any stripe and extremism breeds extremism, thus this vigilante.

What if some American child was mauled or even killed by dogs in Athens during the Olympics. Do you think you would be so critical of the Greeks? Would anyone blame PETA?

There's a larger issue here and its "how do we control animal populations in urban settings?" Being totally against euthanasia leads to the Athens situation. The other issue here how some animal rights people actually hurt animals with their extremist views.
posted by skallas at 9:29 AM on August 2, 2004

two not entirely unrelated facts:

a) in Rio de Janeiro, some groups adopted a similar "solution" to the problem of young human street packs.

b) during the harsher years of the Pinochet regime in Chile, the stray dog population was very much diminished by the fact that dogs are, how to put it, very very cheap protein...
posted by signal at 9:45 AM on August 2, 2004

There's a larger issue here and its "how do we control animal populations in urban settings?"

Well, we could gather stray and feral animals, spay/neuter them, and test them for disease before releasing them back into the urban wild.

It's anti-euthanasia and would not lead to the Athens situation. Unfortunately, it would be very expensive.
posted by trharlan at 9:49 AM on August 2, 2004

i really hate the argument that animals should be killed because they are a 'huge danger to people'

I might buy that WRT mountain lions in the west, but these dogs are hardly noble creatures of the wild. They're feral, and in hardcore urban areas that have been urban for, what, 2600 years or so?

this is like saying deer populations need to be 'thinned out' - maybe if we'd stop tearing down the woods to build cookie cutter houses for people desperate to jump social classes we'd not have to worry about this

Places where people are thinning the deer population are, by and large, places where there are rather *more* acres in forest than there were 100 years ago, so that doesn't really compute.
posted by ROU_Xenophobe at 9:50 AM on August 2, 2004

really? that's an interesting statement considering my mother's once-rural, forested land is now nothing but the cul-de-sac end to a bunch of hideous subdivisions. she's had to chase 'hunters' out of her own YARD (rule is 500 feet away from a house, but she's not down with trespassers or people killing things on her land) more times than she can count because many deer regard the last patch of trees (i.e. her land) as sanctuary.
posted by cadence at 9:58 AM on August 2, 2004

I really hate the argument that animals should be killed because they are a 'huge danger to people' (this is like saying deer populations need to be 'thinned out' - maybe if we'd stop tearing down the woods to build cookie cutter houses for people desperate to jump social classes we'd not have to worry about this). i'm inclined to believe the human race is a virus that affects the planet much like AIDS affects us - we're an unstoppable disease.

I love dogs and animals in general but I really hate when people can feel more compassion for an animal than a person. I think this likely to do with some sort of self-loathing coupled with a naive disney naturalism. Animals are brutal towards one and another. Human beings, even the ones that treat animals poorly, are benign in comparison.

My compassion for animals comes second to my compassion to other people even though people can be different from me in terms of beliefs, attitudes, morals, manners, or musical taste. It also comes after dinner.
posted by srboisvert at 9:59 AM on August 2, 2004

surreal cross-breed packs

All dogs go to heaven, don't they?
posted by sudama at 10:01 AM on August 2, 2004

I'm in Greece in the second largest city after Athens, and here's all I know: There are lots of stray cats and dogs here, but I almost never see dying, diseased or starving animals where I am, which is right downtown in the sort of higher profile area of the city. I don't know what sort of animal control measures are taken here, if any. People will feed the animals and give them water, and I've always been amazed at how well they all seem to do. The taverna owners/employees are not going to let aggressive dogs hang out and beg for food, though they don't usually seem to mind the more laid-back ones as much.

I have a friend who lives outside of the city in a rural area, she is German, and has several dogs and is a dedicated animal lover. She says that everybody in the village hates her because she feeds the stray dogs, and that they try to poison her dogs. My personal theory about that is this: a lot of the people in the country or on the islands are much closer to the historical, rural, agricultural lifestyle, and as such see stray dogs as dangers to livestock, etc. Now, for many of these people it may not be that germane to their current situation anymore, but they were brought up in a certain way and still abide by those attitudes. The one thing I do know is that the Greeks are simply not gratuitously cruel. They can be rude, and infuriating, and very, very bad drivers, but as a rule, they are just not mean, cold or violent.
posted by taz at 10:01 AM on August 2, 2004

Euthanizing stray animals quickly is the best and most humane thing I can think of.

Peta euthanizes animals themselves (though they will never admit it in a million years).
posted by McBain at 10:04 AM on August 2, 2004

They're feral, and in hardcore urban areas that have been urban for, what, 2600 years or so?

Before Greek independence Athens wasn't much of a city. We're talking lean-tos on the Acropolis.

taz: my recollection is that there are a good deal more dogs in Athens than in Thessaloniki.
posted by kenko at 10:09 AM on August 2, 2004

Let's be practical for once, shall we all?

There are packs of feral dogs roaming freely in the streets. They are diseased, they are starving, they are dangerous, and they are undeniably a big problem.

It follows logically that some sort of solution must be applied.

The dogs can not be neutered and released back onto the streets: they will still be diseased, starving, dangerous dogs.

The dogs are not going to be adopted. For starters, they are feral: they're not amenable to adoption.

The dogs can't be trapped and released somewhere else. They remain a problem no matter where they are located. Put them a 1000km into the bush and they'll either die of starvation because they're not bush-savvy, or they'll be absolute murder on the bush-animal population.

The only viable solution appears to be killing them.

It would be best if the government were to develop the balls to round 'em up and put a bullet in the back of their heads. It would be both inexpensive and humane.

It would be best if "animal rights" organizations were to develop the good common-sense to recognize that sometimes there are no "nice" solutions to such problems, and to actually focus their efforts not on stopping the killing, but on making the killing as humane as possible.

I take solace in the knowledge that one day...

Don't be stupid. Hoping for the future suffering of mankind is not any sort of just, rational, or moral kind of thinking.
posted by five fresh fish at 10:10 AM on August 2, 2004

I kind of find it hard to give much of a shit. When I lived in Bangkok, there were 1000s of these mangy mutts strolling round the place, and because Thais are Buddhists, no-one controlled the problem. I remember some fluffy-doggie loving English tourist berating my apartment's security guard because he kicked one of them that came sniffing around his feet. The animal was hairless, riddled with disease and had a 25% chance of being rabid. Maybe it is people's fault that the animals are in that state - but that means we should get sentimental about the repulsive specimens roaming Bangkok, Athens or Istanbul?
posted by Pericles at 10:19 AM on August 2, 2004

Though the government of Athens is denying it is responsible for this, someone is poisoning the city's thousands of stray dogs by putting it in food
...
I really hate the argument that animals should be killed because they are a 'huge danger to people'
...
really? that's an interesting statement considering my mother's once-rural, forested land is now nothing but the cul-de-sac end to a bunch of hideous subdivisions. she's had to chase 'hunters' out of her own YARD...

I'm saddened by the slow torturous death these dogs are experiencing. But I'm somewhat confused by your contention that because suburban development is encroaching on once-rural animal habitat, the wild animals should be allowed to roam wild in the cities.

Ferral packs of animals in the city is exactly the kind of thing that scares people out of the city and into their suburban McMansions. It may not be humane to get rid of these dogs in this way, but would you prefer the residents of a 100-unit urban apartment building move into suburban tract housing?

Cities are habitat for humans. Cats, small fluffy dogs, and exceptionally well behaved large dogs are welcome in the cities. Trees and other vegetation that have been carefully planted so that they don't damage the roads, sidewalks, or building foundations are welcome too.

If you prefer a more natural, rural lifestyle, please move out into the country and enjoy it. But if you encourage all your friends to come, and complain loudly about cities in public forums, then you have only yourself to blame when the ignorant masses come out to join you and destroy everything you love.
posted by Kwantsar at 10:21 AM on August 2, 2004

I'm inclined to believe the human race is a virus that affects the planet much like AIDS affects us - we're an unstoppable disease.

This falls in line with my 'Save the Planet' pet peeve. At heart, it's not about the planet; I'm confident that life on earth will continue on its way in some form or other regardless of what we humans do to it. In fact, I think it's arrogant to think we could 'kill' the planet at all.

At heart, this sentiment is about 'Save the Human Race' which entails saving aspects of our environment that we like, need, etc. for our own survival. Or in the context of the comment above: the human race is a virus that's bent on its own destruction.
posted by tippiedog at 10:23 AM on August 2, 2004

This is a mighty long thread over a bunch of dead dogs.

...snore...
posted by JeffK at 10:27 AM on August 2, 2004

my recollection is that there are a good deal more dogs in Athens than in Thessaloniki

Must be, kenko. I hardly ever even see dog poop on the sidewalks, here, but then Thessaloniki has become amazingly clean in the last few years.

Now that I've started thinking about all this, I have to add that there just some very basic, fundamental cultural differences, as well. The Greeks are going to be less sentimental about animals because generally they don't have animals in their houses, which I imagine a pretty large majority of people here would find a filthy idea. They may have outside animals if they have some land, but I'm trying to think of a single person I know in the city who has pets in their apartment, and I can't think of any...

I'm pretty well certain that the animals in the streets are not going to be cast off pets, and adoption just ain't gonna happen. As with many things, this should have been handled better, but please keep in mind that there really are many, many differences between a tiny nation like Greece, and the U.S. or Great Britain, and Greece doesn't actually come off at all bad on some of those differences. There were many things about living in the U.S. that were almost savage compared to here, or so controlled and sterile that it was oppressive.
posted by taz at 10:28 AM on August 2, 2004

Taz, as an ex-Thessalonian, let me throw in some more details: the old city center is already too crowded for pets, but if you go the eastern part of the city, especially near the sea-front, dogs are common (both as pets and the stray kind). The stray problem gets really bad in the park areas near the seafront as well as in the city edges.

In no case though the strays in Thessaloniki get close to the numbers of those in Athens. I've spent nights in Glyfada (a posh, semi-rural suburb of Athens) when I could not sleep from the howls of the dog packs. Never mind running across a dozen or more strays at night, in the middle of nowhere. Or packs of strays in gang warfare over some dumpster or something. And this is Glyfada, a place more expensive to live in (in absolute numbers) than 90% of the US. I can't even imagine what's going on in the eastern immigrant suburbs of Athens.

As to the Greek's attitudes towards pets: l think Taz is halfway there. Most Greeks, even urban Greeks are only a generation away from living in the countryside, and definitely spend some time during the year visiting family back in the villages. Farmers are a lot more ...pragmatic when it comes to animals than urban folk, like it or not.
posted by costas at 10:46 AM on August 2, 2004

Related? Key West chicken catcher quits his post
posted by soyjoy at 11:15 AM on August 2, 2004

There is no debate that animal control should be handled in the most humane, painless way possible, with the least amount of suffering for the targeted animal. However, I think it is important to separate the rational protection of animal rights from the basic, underlying issue of this argument:

It’s more important to focus on the obvious disgust regarding the sinister methods that cities will perpetrate to keep their image pristine in the eyes of the Olympic committee. I do recall reading a book China Wakes: The Struggle for the Soul of a Rising Power. A history of modern China, it was also filled with stories of how the officials of Beijing diligently prepared the city for their (unsuccessful) bid for hosting the 2000 Olympics. During the process to arrange the city for being judged by the committee, it was common practice for massive walls to be built in order to obfuscate decaying, derelict buildings. And apparently, large groups of beggars & homeless people suddenly went missing. It was commonly believed that they were taken to the outskirts of the city and killed. I can’t even imagine the practices implemented towards the stray animal populations. Rumor has it…
posted by naxosaxur at 11:19 AM on August 2, 2004

animal right's activists are to the left what the anti-abortion activists are to the right

Another reason to hate PETA.

Peta euthanizes animals themselves (though they will never admit it in a million years).

holy fucking jesus!

the level of prejudice and misinformation regarding PETA is simply amazing. ever heard of a google search?

Euthanasia: The Compassionate Option

i say kill 'em all (humanely, not via poison, of course). dogs are fucking stupid, and it's not like they're endangered. ;)

The irony here is that the PETA extremists were so angered at the plan to gas 10,000 dogs that the government backed off.

please provide a source? i couldn't find a reference to this anywhere online, and it sounds like you just made it up.

btw, apparently cats aren't that safe, either.

It’s more important to focus on the obvious disgust regarding the sinister methods that cities will perpetrate to keep their image pristine in the eyes of the Olympic committee.

amen. the Olympics are lame. the "Games" lost their social significance and just become another corporate sponsorship opportunity years ago.
posted by mrgrimm at 11:44 AM on August 2, 2004

Some history here.
posted by costas at 12:15 PM on August 2, 2004

Merely adding the anecdotes above.

I spent a few months in Nepal a few years back, mostly trekking about, but I spent time, as everyone does, in Kathmandu. Like all relatively large, Third World cities, the streets were filled with packs of starving dogs barely surviving on the garbage that piled up in the streets. As these dogs were regularly beaten and abused by everyone, they hardly represented a threat to the passersby. Still, they were odious and pathetic creatures, to be avoided. In the early morning, before most people were about, I'd go walking the empty trash-littered streets and see these huge packs fighting each other for scraps.

Periodically, the government would get tired of these pests and they'd order a wholesale slaughter of EVERY feral dog or cat in the city. Many hundreds if not thousands of the animals would be killed in the streets, often with kuhkris, the traditional sword/knife of the Nepali, in a somewhat festive atmosphere.

Controlling a potentially dangerous pest problem with a relatively humane toxin suddenly doesnt seem so barbaric.
posted by elendil71 at 12:19 PM on August 2, 2004

What really upsets me, though, is how the City of New York cruely poisons its rat population.

I mean, they're cute, cuddly, harmless rats! Leave them be!

Don't even get me started on cruelty to cockroaches.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:44 PM on August 2, 2004

I spent a harrowing night in West Virginia campground being terrorized by feral dogs.

In my (admittedly limited) experience, there's a world of difference between a pack of feral dogs, living in the wilderness long enough to revert to wolf-like behavior, and the dogs I was so fondly recalling from traveling around Greece. You are reading "wild dogs loose in Greece!" and applying your exerience in some rural part of West Virginia, which while I appreciate it must have been terrifying, is not at all the same thing. The dogs too which I am was referring congregate where tourists go - at the famous sites and such - and are, as I said, obviously fed by them. My point was not that there are no dangerous dogs loose in Greece, but rather that in indiscriminately poisoning every wild dog, some of the friendliest, least threatening dogs I've met will be destroyed as well.
posted by JollyWanker at 1:57 PM on August 2, 2004

Here in Korea, there are two kinds of dogs, basically (barring the chin-do). The little shivering crapping yapping rat-dogs with bow ties in their hair, kept as pets by pudgy women with misplaced sentimentality, and eatin' dogs, kept in cages and used to make soup, particularly during the 'dogs days of summer' between cho-bok and mal-bok (roughly July 21 to August 21, though lunar calendar).

I love dogs, but I don't object to people eating them, and if they're feral in an urban environment, I have no objection to putting them down.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:26 PM on August 2, 2004

If you still want to go to the Mediterranean, but don't want to spend the big bucks in France, Italy, or Spain, then try Croatia.. still cheap, and absolutely gorgeous. Some would argue it's more Adriatic, but hey. (If you've got the money, then France or Italy, definitely)

it's not uncommon to find them ill or dead - run over or dying quietly from some disease in a gutter - but isn't that normal for wild animals?

You speak with logic, but people seem to attribute special qualities to certain types of animal. Most people have no problem with smashing houseflies, for instance, but will not attempt to kill a butterfly. Very bizarre.
posted by wackybrit at 5:04 AM on August 3, 2004

Butterflies are CYOOT, wackybrit. I mean, duh.
posted by kenko at 7:46 AM on August 3, 2004

Contra Costa sewage workers drive 4-inch nails into pigeons' chests.

workers at a KFC supply plant squeeze chickens until they pop so that they can spray other birds with their feces.

still think PETA is the problem?
posted by mrgrimm at 8:25 AM on August 3, 2004

PETA isn't the problem. It is a problem. It is a problem because PETA is not interested in the "middle ground." They want it entirely their way -- namely, that none of their preferred animals ever be killed for any reason. And they promote this hard-core demand through dishonest advertising, shameless hyperbole, and criminal action.

PETA is a radical organization, and as such is an important component in the movement toward humane treatment of animals. It may even be a necessary organization, in that only through extremism do we shift social attitudes toward change.

PETA is not an organization to be included in any rational approach to developing a humane system of animal management, simply because it is so firmly rooted in its extremist stance that it is not productive to discuss alternatives with them. When an adversary has an all-or-none approach, you effectively do not require their presence at the table.
posted by five fresh fish at 11:14 AM on August 3, 2004

Most people have no problem with smashing houseflies, for instance, but will not attempt to kill a butterfly. Very bizarre.

maybe one day if the common housefly becomes as endangered as most species of butterfly are we will treat them differently. 'til then, i just let my cats catch and eat them - i'd never smash one myself.
posted by t r a c y at 11:48 AM on August 3, 2004

... they promote this hard-core demand through dishonest advertising, shameless hyperbole, and criminal action.

blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. please provide some facts instead of useless blather. in my book PETA == mainstream. Pamela Anderson is a spokeswoman, for god's sake (along with Dennis Franz, Bill Maher, and Michael Strahan).

ok, i'll do it for you. read through all the links, then search around for the other side of each story, and see how much you blame PETA. if you still think they're terrorists or equal to anti-abortionists, that's certainly your right, but i would disagree vehemently.

if PETA is an extremist group, then so is the beef industry.

They want it entirely their way -- namely, that none of their preferred animals ever be killed for any reason.

bullshit (in case you missed it the first time). by the way, that comment could be just as easily applied to the U.S. Humane Society.
posted by mrgrimm at 2:47 PM on August 3, 2004