The only image we can discern behind the animals’ cells are sickly bodies, depressed looks, nervous attitudes from the condition of captivity. Contact with wildlife cannot happen through these places where states enslave and torture animals for the sole benefit of spectacle and economic resources.
English translation:
Posters at the offices of the Department of Urban Fauna of the
Municipality of Athens against the confinement of animals in the
National Garden
On Wednesday 18/7 we held an intervention with posters at the
offices of the Department of Urban Fauna of the Municipality of
Athens in Aeolou, which is responsible for the murder of over sixty
water turtles and for the confinement of dozens of animals in cages
in the National Garden.
Below is the informative text on the above case:
FREEDOM FOR THE IMPRISONED ANIMALS OF THE NATIONAL GARDEN
On Sunday 28 April over sixty water turtles lay dead in the National
Garden inside the area where they are being held prisoner. Visitors
and patrons of the garden begin to pull their dead bodies out of the
water, with those in charge doing nothing, thereby endangering the
health of the other turtles. These are water turtles that live
captive in a fenced area of the park in overpopulated conditions, as
in order to get out of the water to place their bodies in the sun, a
process necessary for their survival, they literally step on each
other due to lack of space. The fact of their miserable living
conditions in the national garden has been publicized since 2015
with litigation organizations protesting against the condition in
which the water turtles are crowded and suffering due to their
overcrowding.
In addition to the fact of the confinement of these turtles, the
national garden has for many years been a place where many animals
live in confinement to serve as a spectacle. Parrots, pigeons,
ducks, geese, geese, kri-kri, rabbits, chickens, fish and many other
animals are kept imprisoned, depending on the species some have been
chosen to live “free” while others of the same species are kept in
cages as specimens, with the municipality of Athens having full
responsibility for their captivity. A municipality that tries to
convince us that it cares about the greenery and the animals living
in the city, while in reality with the “redevelopments” of the last
years it cuts down trees, destroys the animals’ nests, concretes the
city’s greenery and through the attack of gentrification it expels
the social base from the neighbourhoods of the centre, turning them
into commercial zones.
The city’s urban base from downtown neighbourhoods, turning them
into freight zones.
The national garden essentially functions as a small zoo in Athens,
which is advertised as a tourist attraction, just as similar animal
collections attract tourists in other cities. Zoos have always been
places of torture and imprisonment of animals. Under the pretext of
entertainment and human contact with wildlife, animals are forcibly
snatched from their natural habitat or bred in captivity, condemned
to endure a life in cages. The logic that zoos should be places
where people come closer to nature is an authoritarian absurdity as
the imposition of a life in prison can only be seen as something
normal. The only image we can discern behind the animals’ cells are
sickly bodies, depressed looks, nervous attitudes from the condition
of captivity. Contact with wildlife cannot happen through these
places where states enslave and torture animals for the sole benefit
of spectacle and economic resources.
At the same time, there are many times when animals escaping from
their cages are killed in cold blood by zoo workers. A typical case
in Greece is the Attica zoo where in recent years jaguars and
chimpanzees have been killed because they simply wanted to live
freely.
Returning to the case of the national garden, the excuse is often
used that American water turtles are an alien species and hostile to
the Greek environment and thus cannot be released. Of course, we
cannot help but comment on the above argument as states and the
animal trade are responsible for taking animals from their natural
habitats and transporting them to completely different environments
than the ones they are used to living in. In a similar way, the
national garden is a repository of “unwanted” animals by their
buyers who, after becoming bored with them, irresponsibly abandon
them in the national garden cages, indefinitely delegating their
care.
In conclusion, we conclude that if zoos have anything to teach us,
it is the authoritarian practice of modern societies over animals
and nothing beyond that. We are not demanding better confinement
conditions or bigger and cleaner cages. We are demanding that all
animals where they are held incarcerated be released into their
natural environments and that we fight to stop their exploitation.