Death squads targeting wild animals have emerged in the country in recent times. According to reports, armed “punisher” groups organize patrols and kill wild animals even within protected areas, viewing murder as a form of discipline for the rest of the species. A particularly horrific crime, indicative of the current situation, occurred a few days ago in Livadero, Drama, where a young bear was not only murdered—cold-bloodedly, according to environmental organizations—but also mutilated post-mortem, as it was found decapitated.
At the same time, animal welfare organizations denounce as dangerous and illegal the actions of teams of hunters and hunting dogs, organized by forestry authorities in Hippocrates City, Kifisia, and Dionysos, aimed at the mass killing of wild boars, without prior notice to local residents.
As Spiros Psaroudas, coordinator of the environmental organization “Callisto,” explains to NEA, “The animal killed in Drama, a 4–5-year-old male bear, was shot in the back and thigh—that is, either from behind or from above—showing that the injury was not in self-defense. The brutality of the act, namely the decapitation, indicates a hate-driven act. This is unprecedented; we have never seen it before. Unfortunately, after the incident with the mountaineer in the Fraktos forest, fear developed and, over months, a myth circulated locally that an execution squad should be formed to kill the bear. We must emphasize that this bear was not killed because it attacked a human, but simply because it was a bear.”
Raw Violence
Psaroudas links the incident to a value system that, he says, normalizes the law of weapons, raw violence, zero tolerance, and killing for something unfamiliar. “Even in the tragic incident last June involving a mountaineer, as shown by video footage he recorded on his phone, the bear did not attack the human but the dog accompanying the hikers, which should not have been there for safety reasons. Therefore, the decision to kill the animal was not related to its aggression. Since we published the incident yesterday, we have received many anonymous messages reporting that, in the area, in Kalofyto and other locations, three more animals have recently been executed by an organized group motivated solely by hatred,” he explains.
Criminal Prosecution
It is noted that the Drama Forest Directorate is handling the case and investigating it, as killing or injuring a bear constitutes a criminal act punishable by law. Bears in Greece are fully protected under both national and international legislation. Both the species and its habitat are protected by the Forest Code, the Habitats Directive, the Bern Convention, and the Washington Convention. According to the Red Book of Threatened Animals in Greece (2009), the bear is classified as an Endangered Species.
Nevertheless, every year in Greece, between 4 and 16 cases of bear killings are recorded, with experts noting that many more go unreported.
“The imposition of the ‘death penalty’ on wild animals is not only illegal but also meaningless,” comments Spiros Psaroudas. “When lethal methods are treated as a fair and effective way to manage wildlife—which all scientific studies contradict—there is a problem. And when this is done for value-based reasons, under a zero-tolerance mindset and fostering unchecked violence, it is certainly extremely alarming,” he adds.
