A video showing the brutal abuse of a donkey on the otherwise beautiful and picturesque island of Santorini has triggered a new outrage in Greece and abroad. The footage shows the muleteer brutally beating the poor animal on the head and the face with a long cane. The animal ducks the head down but the owner keeps beating the donkey.
Bίντεο στο Instagram δείχνει πως αγωγιάτης πλακώνει στο ξύλο #γαϊδούρι στη #Σαντορίνη. Περισσότερα εδώ: https://t.co/LcA7OUSXSy @hellenicpolice #santorini #donkeytrain #donkeyabuse #savedonkey via @ElenisZoo pic.twitter.com/2unc17EeYZ
— zoosos.gr (@zoosos) July 17, 2018
The video was shot November 2017 and posted by a tourist who was vising Santorini. Clyde Delong posted it on instagram on Nov 14 2017 and wrote in the accompanying text that he and his friend started shouting at the muleteer he either didn’t hear them or ignored them and kept beating the animal.
When they tried to locate the man he had dis appeared in the narrow streets of the settlement and as they did not know the area well, they abandoned the effort.
Now that the video has been spread also on animal welfare societies websites and social media, everyone is asking for the persecution of the donkey owner.
Speaking to zoosos.gr, local veterinarian Manolis Vorrisis said that he will submit the video to the prosecutor of Syros ςηο ισ in charge of Santorini. It will be easy for local police to identify the donkey’s owner, the vet said.
Although the donkey owner cannot longer persecuted in the context of “in flagranti delicto” (caught in action), the time limit passed from the moment the crime has been committed has not expired yet.
Vorrisis points out that the owner repeatedly beat the donkey on the head and that the animal accepts it. The donkey ducks and this shows that the animal has been often exposed to beating. The reaction does not show surprised reflex, the vet said.
It is not the first and unfortunately it is not the last time footage or pictures show the continuation of donkeys abuse on Santorini.
The local society and authorities may tend to cover up the abuse of the donkeys on Santorini, but there are enough tourists and visitors with mobiles and cameras to document the shameful practice.
The beating video comes one and a half month after local footage showed another outrageous abuse, with a donkey bending under the heavy weight of garbage bags.
Local welfare societies said they will expose every case of donkey abuse they are aware of.
On social media there are calls on tourists to stop using donkeys as transport means.
It’s either locals have to take initiatives and educate the donkey owners or they will soon hear more and more voices calling to boycott the “cosmopolitan” Santorini, even though it is one of the most popular tourists’ destinations in Greece.
In this age of social media and a more responsible attitude to the treatment of animals amongst the countries that form the bulk of Santorini’s tourists, videos like this are likely to prove explosive. To deliberately miss-quote Ed Harris’s character from the film Apollo 13; ‘business as usual is not an option’.
That person hitting the donkey in santorini will have to found and charged
As long as local authorities dONT do anything ( as usual ) …it will be this shameful barbaric middle aged attitude.