AR-News: (France) Athens unleashing a plan for its strays

[Animalara2003 at aol.com]

ATHENS As it struggles to complete its odyssey of pre-Olympics primping, this 
scraggly city finds itself pressed to prove more than its ability to pave 
roads, plant trees and prettify monuments. 
.
It has to show that it hasn't gone to the dogs. 
.
They are legion, and they are leash-less. Strays saunter through public 
squares, tails wagging or teeth bared, depending on their dispositions and the 
nearness of meaty alms. Strays flank the gilded portals to fancy boutiques, like 
furry, four-legged doormen with a naked hankering for table scraps. 
.
In a widely publicized incident last summer, one stray bit a Ukrainian 
archery coach who was in Athens for Olympic test events and out for a run. 
.
The wound was not serious, except to the scruffy image of Athens and its 
environs, whose caretakers are now trying, in a manner that might well be 
described as dogged, to tame the situation. 
.
Just a few months ago, the national government enacted legislation intended 
to reduce the population of strays by holding Greeks more accountable, with 
toughened pet-registration requirements and stiff fines for abandoning their pets 
to the streets. 
.
Athens, for its part, is funneling about $2 million this year into new animal 
shelters, new animal control officers and a major sterilization project. If 
the newly neutered strays are not adopted in two weeks, they are set free to 
roam anew, but in a less reproductive fashion. 
.
full story:

http://www.iht.com/articles/131264.htm 









"The world is a dangerous place,
not because of those who do evil,
but because of those who look on and do nothing."
Albert Einstein    

                         /\   /\         
                        >' .' <                                
         There is no justice, just us!  
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