A large colony of cats lives in the National Gardens and Zappeion: most were dumped there by irresponsible owners.

AT LEAST fourteen dogs and between 30 and 70 cats were poisoned in the National Gardens and Zappeion on December 30-31, the Friends of the Cat charity reported on December 31. Members of the charity, who feed the cats in the gardens every day, discovered the bodies of eight stray dogs and two cats on the morning of December 30, and the following day another six dead dogs and at least 30 cats were found.

A further 40 cats were still missing on December 31 when Ioanna Christoforos of the charity spoke to the Athens News. "Cats tend to go and hide when they are dying," she explained, "so it could take some time to find all the bodies."

The group recovered four boxes of meat believed to be the poisoned substance and will take it for laboratory analysis. The police have been informed, as poisoning animals is a punishable crime under Greek law 11/97 for the protection of animals.

Aristidis Fatouros, director of the National Gardens, was on holiday and unavailable for comment on December 31. One of his aides told the Athens News that the office was unaware of the poisoning, despite the fact that television cameras gathered in the gardens on the morning of December 31 to film the carnage.

The majority of cats living in the National Gardens and Zappeion had been neutered, vaccinated, provided with any medical care necessary and wormed by the Friends of the Cat charity.

Carol Mcbeth from Greek Animal Welfare, CIDAG member, further comments: A similar incident occurred the last time Greece assumed the Presidency of the E.U. A dreadful coincidence. Why should this be? Three vets who carried out post mortems on some of the bodies have confirmed that the cause of death was poisoning.

CIDAG adds to the above article by Cordelia Madden that the cats in question were fed daily by volunteers from Friends of the Cats as well as Athenians frequenting the park. These cats all had names and were loved and cared for.