An urgent plea to help volunteer-run charities, Zante Strays, ZAWF and Healing Paws, on the island of Zakynthos, Greece.
They have no funding from government sources and rely purely on donations from the wonderful online communities that surrounds them.
If you would like to help please click on the link provided Let Zante rescue shelters send their dogs home!
Between them they rehome 1000+ strays every year across Europe – rescuing them from the streets where they have been dumped and left to die and give them the opportunity no one else would – a life.
As one welfare member stated :- The solution is to license our shelters either permanently or temporarily. Even if the Municipality wants to build a Municipal Shelter, it means that it will not be built immediately. We can not take risks with the stray animals. To gives us a temporary license for 1-2 years until the Municipality sees what it will do and if it will build its own space “.
Healing Paws animal Rescue has also stated:-
You may be aware that we are having great difficulties currently transporting dogs from Zante/Zakynthos to their loving homes in the U.K. This does not just apply to Healing Paws but all the amazing selfless rescuers in Greece as a whole.
This is not just due to Covid or Brexit. The main problem is due to the specific requirements rescuers running shelters in Greece have to adhere to (in order to get the TRACES paperwork to allow the dogs to travel overseas for adoptions) Primarily this is a fully licensed shelter adhering to the strict Greek build requirements. There are only 5 or 6 shelters in the whole of Greece who are fully licensed and can obtain these legal papers.
We currently have thirty plus dogs waiting to go to their wonderful new homes and we are in great danger of being overwhelmed very soon. This is an unthinkable situation for all the charities on the island. It is so ironic isn’t it that if you call the municipality for help with the strays (this is their responsibility) they do not want to know and say the dogs should be left to their own fate, which of course is being shot at as adults or dying as pups. However, when the rescues want to send the dogs to another ‘foreign’ country to a loving home, they do everything in their power to prevent this with the conflicting Greek laws and bureaucracy!
Healing Paws is a small charity run by Sue Deeth and 4 Trustees, who depend heavily on Oli, Sue’s son, along with Tracey and Alan, and the other foster parents who look after huge numbers of abandoned and stray dogs and cats.
We are appealing to the Mayor of Zakynthos for an interim solution to be able to move the dogs who have been fortunate enough to have been offered loving homes in the UK. Greece is the only country in Europe who will NOT issue the relevant legal paperwork. It’s time they joined the rest of Europe and updated their policies!
The only long-term solution to get the relevant paperwork for re-homing the dogs is to buy land and build a fully licensed and legal shelter. We are looking into this, but it is the here and now that we have to address!
Please help us now by signing the petition that all 3 charities on Zante are promoting.
Link attached
Let’s raise the profile of Zakynthos in the right way and get global news coverage of what we are doing and why ….. Together we can do this.
We have no choice because we and the other charities on Zante are the only voice of the voiceless and the only protectors and guardians of these hopeless and homeless souls. Please help us to help them ….. we cannot and will not fail them in this endeavour.
For incidents regarding the strays, please call the Municipality of Zakynthos and the competent Department of Agricultural Production and Development as they are legally responsible for all strays. The volunteers have simply been doing their work for them. THIS however cannot continue if we are unable to move the dogs we already have in our care. WE NEED a solution, and we need it NOW !!
Zakynthos Informer Zakynthos Informer
