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Department of Urban Fauna Gets Wheatpasted Against the Confinement of Animals in Athens' National Garden

From UnoffensiveAnimal.is
July 2024

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.

aquarium protest

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.


Posted on All-Creatures.org: August 10, 2024
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