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Philip Dragoumis

"Wisdom begins in wonder" Socrates

Philip Dragoumis is one of the founding team of the Hellenic Wildlife Hospital on the island of Aegina, in Greece.  Due to the comparatively recent development and growth of wildlife rehabilitation in Greece, Philip has been closely involved with wildlife rehabilitation from its inception to it's current state of development. He remains involved in rehabilitation in every capacity - from co-Director, rehabilitator, wildlife care and surgery, to capture, release and habitat preservation.  Philip is also an example of how the Internet revolution has affected wildlife rehabilitation worldwide - most of his current contacts in North America were developed via the RaptorCare listserv and email.  His close friendships with people like Marge Gibson and Louise Shimmel were developed long before he met them.

Philosophy helped me learn to think ( I hope!) and art to use my hands. Now, when I have to make a splint to fix a broken bone, I consider it a work of art. It's the same if I have to design an enclosure for birds or mammals. I imitate nature, as I would with painting or sculpture. I do not always succeed. When I returned to Greece from Paris, I remember reading an article about mass deaths of birds as a result of the olive groves being sprayed with pesticides and it worried me, all
the things disappearing - countryside and tradition as well as nature. I became interested in doing something but I didn't know what - that was back in 1979. There was little you could learn about conservation in Greece then. I started birdwatching in Greece when I knew of no one else who was doing the same, just to find out what birds and other animals could be seen. During those early years you couldn't even find a field guide. Only hunters and bird trappers could give me some information about wildlife!  Eventually I met some people with the same interest as I, and became involved in the Hellenic Ornithological Society, which was then very small - only a year old. That's how I became active in birdlife and nature protection, and I worked on several projects. I met Yiannis Poulopoulos,  the first person to rehab wildlife in Greece, through the ornithological society. It seemed a great idea, particularly for changing the attitude of people towards wildlife.

online: So actually you've had a childhood love for animals.

Philip: Yes, we had animals at home - cats and dogs and I always liked them. My grandfather would always collect news clips about animals he found in the papers and many animal pictures and send them to me every month -  as if he had decided that that should be my main interest. It appears also that when my parents talked to me, I often wouldn't answer. When they asked why, after a long pause I replied "But I'm listening to the dog!"   Far away there was a dog barking , and to me it seemed more important than what my parents had to say!

online: Tell us about Greece, in the context of wildlife and the species that you work with there.

Philip: Well the species that we work with are anything sent to us - we don't specialize.  We get about 700 birds of prey. More than half of them are Common Buzzards, or Hawks as you would call them . The rest are large water birds like storks, herons, pelicans... We get a few mammals - not very many. In total we have dealt with over 150 species of birds. Some we deal with regularly, like Dalmatian Pelican, Pygmy Cormorant, Mediterranean Shag , Black Vulture, Imperial Eagle, Spotted Eagle, Bonelli's Eagle, Lesser Spotted Eagle, Eleonora's Falcon, Lanner, Lesser Kestrel, Great Bittern  - some threatened throughout the world.

online: Mostly avian?

Treating a bird with a shot wound.

Philip: Mostly avian.  Not because we have decided to do so, but that's what is sent most to the hospital. A few hedgehogs, a few foxes, occasionally a roe deer, and some wolves rescued from captivity - too habituated to be released; some reptiles, but people don't send in snakes; many tortoises with broken shells from cars or cruelty. But the bulk of what we get - about 70%, is birds from illegal shooting. Most of them have wing or leg fractures. I think that a large injured bird is more conspicuous than a mammal. Don't forget that mammals are mostly secretive and nocturnal.   Power lines also do quite a bit of damage to large slow flying birds, storks in particular, who often nest on high tension lines. But also vultures, eagle owls...

online: I think most North Americans would be interested in hearing which animals you deal with in Greece that we don't have here in North America.

Philip: Well, you don't have hedgehogs, for example, or not the same kind of deer. Most birds are similar, but not the same. There are in fact only a few species we have in common, such as the Golden Eagle, Harrier, Peregrine, Barn Owl, Long and Short-eared Owls, and a few others. It was very interesting for me to see birds here that are quite similar but of different species. Some a bit larger, others a bit smaller or have different adaptations. I try to imagine the adaptations each animal has
to the different habitat types and how evolution has led animals of different continents to "discover" different solutions in order to fit similar niches in their environment. Like your vultures - New World vultures which apparently are closer to storks than birds of prey but do a similar clean-up job. In Europe there is nothing like hummingbirds. The gap from their non-existence is filled in by a species of butterfly.   In our country we have a bigger variety of eagle species but a limited variety of hawks, whereas here in North America there are many hawks and fewer eagle species.

online: How many eagle species do you deal with?

Philip: There are ten: Golden Eagle, Imperial Eagle, Steppe Eagle, Spotted Eagle, Lesser Spotted Eagle, Bonelli's Eagle, Booted Eagle, Short-tailed Eagle, White-tailed Eagle ( also called Sea Eagle - cousin of your Bald) and the Osprey that we also call an eagle in Greece - the fish-eagle.  Unfortunately, we have dealt with all of them.

online: In your presentation, you spoke about habitat and the influence on habitat of hunting, bird poaching and agriculture. Could you tell us more about that?

Philip: Well, many wetlands in Greece, important for wildlife, have been drained to become farmland, and many lowland forests have been destroyed .  Traditional farming, which was attractive for wildlife,  is gradually being transformed into large scale mono-culture, where more and more pesticides and fertilizers are needed. In fact the draining-land reclamation policy didn't end till the 70's and some of the areas drained did not even become as productive as expected. Now Greece has rather good laws about habitat and species protection but it's difficult to implement them. One of the first steps was the EEC bird directive, the important Bird Areas Project, and the RAMSAR Convention for international protection of wetlands. This convention obliges countries to protect important wetlands. It is a means for us to fight to save them. But, although large scale destruction has been avoided, little things, little destructive things, are still going on every day - small legal or illegal interventions eating bits of nature away all the time. Things like illegal house building, like bad water management, like illegal shooting, like cutting down trees, disturbing colonies - things like that. Like mountain roads for logging that lead hunters everywhere, and open up formerly inaccessible areas. And many small interventions can end up in a big transformation.

online: Tell us about the bird poaching. You've mentioned bird poaching numbers that seemed to be shocking.

Philip: Yes, it's very shocking. I mentioned Chios island - a beautiful island, but for the birds it's hell. It's one of the worst areas in Greece.  It's traditional: bird trapping with a kind of glue, practiced by all generations, the whole family. So this island is a giant trap for migratory birds. It's illegal, but the law in Greece is difficult to implement. Education is the only thing which can work, but it will take time.

online: And these birds are caught for consumption?

Philip: The males are often sold as songbirds, and the females are eaten, or trapped just for fun. The birds are often left in a trap for hours, and birds of prey - small owls or hawks are attracted and they get glued also.  We have often washed glue off Barn Owls.

online: So they're using a kind of glue-stick or glue-perch?

Philip: Yes, a glue perch. They easily make that glue perch out of a plant called ixos, hence the Greek word "xoverga."  I don't know the English word for the plant.

online: I guess this leads into our next question - tell us about wildlife enforcement policies in Greece and how they have evolved.

Philip: As I mentioned, the laws are not the problem, implementing them is difficult. There are large areas and few forest wardens to control the hunters. On some islands or mountains there is nobody and forest-wardens have told me that they fear that they might get shot. It's difficult to enforce the law,  as often a judge may not think that he should condemn a respectable citizen just for shooting a "worthless" bird. A few weeks ago people brought us an eagle which had been shot. The local people knew who had done it, but nobody would dare turn him in. They felt they had to protect themselves and not to destroy their relations with that person - could be for example a doctor or someone that they just see frequently and depend upon. This happens a lot in small societies. It's rare that somebody is actually caught, in spite of the fact that the law is strict. I think what is most important is education.  There used to be a very extensive illegal trade in song birds and stuffed birds everywhere.  Ten to fifteen years ago anyone could go into a shop of a taxidermist and order a Golden Eagle or an Eagle Owl for example, to decorate his living room. Captured Goldfinches & Greenfinches in awful, dirty, small cages was a very common sight. Now things are better. It's no longer such a fashion thanks in part to law enforcement through confiscations,  but most of all to education. The wildlife hospital and many other organizations are widely known, most people know something about the need for  preservation of habitat and threatened species from the media, and there is no longer such a big songbird trade. But there are other problems, like importing exotic reptiles as pets - legal or illegal. It's rather new in Greece, but it's becoming a new fashion - a bit like here.

online: The history of wildlife rehabilitation in Greece is closely tied to your own background, in that you were one of the first rehabilitators in Greece. Tell us about the growth of wildlife rehabilitation.

Philip: I wasn't one of the first... in fact Yiannis Poulopoulos, whom I still work with, is the founder of the hospital. He started on his own in 1984 in a different town, four years ahead of me. But in Greece, every male has to go into the army for two years - so he had to go into the army. The year was 1988 - I had just finished my military service - it's a time of your life when you're really out of action - no contact with the outside world.  So when he was in the army the whole thing was in danger of disintegrating because he was the motivating force behind it. He had people helping him, but they were dependent on him as a leader. So I felt - with some other people, that we had to take over part of the responsibility to keep everything going until Yiannis returned. When eventually he did, we were already so deep in this,  and the injured animal intake had increased so much,  we just had to work together, as we have been doing ever since. So, whenever I'm asked why I got into this mess, I just say it's his fault!   From the moment I stepped in there was no way out anymore.

Also, we had difficulty finding a piece of land. We had a lot of animals in a flat in Athens, but there was a terrible heat wave and we feared that they would just die, so I suggested "Why don't we take the animals to my family house, on Aegina island, next to the sea, where it's cooler."   There were not very many animals then - perhaps thirty or forty. Se we did, and we occupied my family house until the rest of my family could no longer use the house! They would try to go to the bathroom and get bitten by a fox.  They did not complain but they said, "Ok Philip, you can have all of it for 5 years, but after that you will have to find another place."  You see I have three sisters, married with children, husbands and so on... they let me use it for 7 years until we moved completely to the old disused prison of Aegina.  Through this farmhouse, we stuck with the island of Aegina. It's the geographic center of Greece, it's easy to go back and forth to Athens, it's close to the airport, it's close to the main harbour in Piraeus. It's a nice place, warm in winter and there are no carnivorous mammals present so it's easy to keep birds outdoors.
At first we had trouble finding the information about rehabilitation we needed - nothing about wildlife in the Greek language, and the vets knew next to nothing. We learned much from our mistakes, we didn't have the proper contacts, and so on. It was a horrible time. For three years we were just working all day long, every day and much of it was in vain. Thankfully, in our early stages we were helped out by an English wildlife vet, Dr. John Lewis, who was also the first person who spoke to us about the IWRC, but it seemed very distant back then. Very patiently, John worked with us on every individual case and as I was translating for the others who did not speak English. He  helped us work out a treatment protocol and put things straight. That was in 1991, I think.  The hospital soon became really well known in Greece and as a result from the few birds that we had been taking, the numbers rose to the thousands.

online:  Sounds familiar!

Philip: (laughing) Yes, I'm sure it is familiar! There was a very sudden rise of the animals that we took care of. We didn't have enough space to take care of so many birds of prey under treatment, so we had to keep them in cardboard boxes where there was not sufficient light for them, and we had to hand-feed them all, so we'd just keep hand-feeding rows of hawks all night long.

Black & Mute Swans, Flamingoes in the waterbird rehabilitation pool.

That was after 1991, when we were really very few - just three or four people. We were working 16 hours per day, almost no sleep. The house quickly became inadequate, and the garden had been taken over by pelicans, flamingoes, herons and assorted other water birds which were allowed to fly whenever they felt like it. We even had migratory flocks of egrets and herons visiting for free meals along with the crippled ones and whole populations of ever-hungry gulls. But, most of all we did not have proper cages for conditioning large birds of prey, and no space to build any. That's when I paid a visit to the Mayor of the town of Aegina. He proposed the use of the prison facility - it was perfect but we had to clean it out from all kinds of garbage. There were more than 40 very large rooms - former dormitories for 20-40 prisoners, and several open terraces where they used to have their walks. Space suddenly became unlimited... but in a 180 year old building with leaky ceilings.

online:  Is there much support in Greece from veterinarians, and do the veterinarians in Greece know a lot about wildlife medicine?

Philip: Wildlife medicine does not have any practical use, so it's not taught in university. Birds in general are a puzzle to most vets who even send clients with parrots over to us to get rid of the responsibility, and we just send them to our vet in Athens who is knowledgeable about parrots.  There is only one vet I know of in Greece - a professor in university who has a specific interest and specializes in wildlife. We work closely with her, but mostly through the mobile phone as her time is very limited. But she will deal with complicated cases and threatened species, take in large mammals such as deer at the university and give us any kind of advice we might need, anytime of day or night. We also work with a very good vet in Athens who is not a wildlife vet but he is interested and does not charge us. He will do most of our lab work and surgery. Sometimes we also use the local vet who is also very helpful but has no particular knowledge about wildlife. But the three vets together cover our basic needs. Recently we get many volunteer vets or vet students from Greece or abroad so awareness and interest is rising. We have so many animals however,  that in fact we would only be happy if we had a full time wildlife vet employed. It's our plan as soon as we have the funds.

online:  So, things like surgery... do you do them yourself?

Philip: I have done stitching, open wound management, fracture immobilization with splints and simple orthopedics like pinning. No invasive surgery in body cavity, eyes,  so on. Speed sometimes is of the utmost priority with fractures. We see over 1000 fractures per year... we would only be able to have all of them treated by a vet if we had one full-time on the spot. There is sometimes not enough time either to take them to our vet's facility, or to get him to ours. Post-operatively, birds fare much better if transportation before and after surgery is avoided. Our losses from anesthesia , although we use IV Ketamine and Rompun,  are minimal.

online: Are domestic animals impacting heavily on wildlife in Greece?

A family of orphaned Barn Owls

Philip: Domestic animals always have an impact on wildlife, from house cats to goats overgrazing, and cows treading on the nests of ground nesters. But most of the animals we get - over 70%, are victims of illegal shooting. There are many stray dogs and cats in Greece but I have the impression that they spend more time searching the garbage cans or begging in taverns than chasing birds, as well-fed owned ones would do as their favorite pastime when their stomach is full. The garbage offers more opportunity for strays than hunting ever will and leaves them less free time. However, I think that the cats in Greece are a real threat for lizards and small reptiles which we never learn about, as nobody ever finds them or cares to send them for treatment. Probably there are fewer cat owners in Greece than here, and our percentage is only about 5%-10%. When there is so much illegal shooting going on, it seems a lesser problem for the moment.

online:  Now the centre that you described to us was your own family house. Tell us about the Hellenic Wildlife Hospital and how it was formed.

Philip: It's the same organization, independently of where the animals are kept and treated. The "Hellenic Wildlife Hospital" non-profit organization was formed in 1990, to help us get permits - the first of its kind in Greece,  and do education and fund raising. Before that we were part of the Hellenic Ornithological Society. Many volunteers, local representatives or other interested wildlife protection groups work under the supervision and license of the H.W.H. That's how we try to cover the whole country. A volunteer on a remote island for example will keep an exhausted migrant or other animal he can release with rehydration and feeding and send us those he cannot deal with. In this way we avoid animals being sent by the finders who generally make well-intentioned mistakes. Some representatives become more and more experienced and gradually more independent, but they are still part of our network and work under our supervision. Now our volunteers in Thessaloniki have opened an office and a clinic. They are still "The Hellenic Wildlife Hospital,"  no different than us. They have no need to apply for a separate license and it's easier for them to fund-raise and campaign under a well-known title. All they need to do is coordinate with us and report all cases. We may now be a network of more than 100 people, ten of them working at the old prison, many in Athens on such things as the newsletter and so on.

online:  You mentioned a plan for a new facility, can you describe it?

Philip: Unfortunately we cannot use the old prison for very long. It's considered a historical building and they want to transform it into an archeological museum and a culture center. As I said... it's a very old building, originally an orphanage, one of the first buildings of the Greek independent state when Aegina - for a short period, was the first capital of Greece. The Wildlife Hospital is about to move to a large piece of land, donated by the City Council of Aegina and the money to build will come from an EEC project through the Greek State. The plans are just wonderful. Ample space for flight cages, rehabilitation pools, clinics, theater for educational events and meetings, research areas, labs and so on. But we have been stuck with bureaucracy and if various problems are not solved, nothing at all will be done. Apart from bureaucracy and inadequacy of the state to carry out such a project, there are some conflicts. Although the local people and public opinion is on our side, a few rich people who have holiday houses, not all of them Greek, do not want the hospital as they fear they will be disturbed by visiting school children and some extra traffic. They cannot use this as an argument but they are trying hard to block the project by claiming that the area is too close to an archeological site and use any influence they have in the government to stop it. 50% of Greece is an archeological site! If you dig under Athens you will find all kinds of ancient ruins, so according to them, we should demolish everything!  The archeological site is about half a mile away from where we intend to go, and our plans will not alter the esthetics of the area. We argue that the ancient Greeks who had Eagles and Owls as symbols of power and wisdom will be very happy to be neighbors with animals.  We are in favour of moving from the prison, as the building is very old and needs to be repaired. It can't be repaired with the animals inside and at the moment parts of it are dangerous, difficult to heat in winter and leaky in heavy rain. Last year part of the ceiling fell down in the clinic room. 170 years old, abandoned, what do you expect? And the ministry of civilization who now owns the prison does not want to throw us out if we don't have a place to go. So if the new building project is lost, they won't be able to repair the prison and it will gradually fall down.

online: But there is a problem that you face that the rest of us don't face. Isn't the tax status for charitable donations in Greece quite different from North America?

Philip: Terrible! In Greece, if you make a donation you certainly must be richer than you have admitted to us - or so the tax people think. Therefore, just in case you are hiding something, the tax people take 20%. This is the main reason we cannot rely on donations. We have to get state funding to survive, which we do but erratically and with loads of bureaucracy involved. In the past it wasn't like this and supermarkets or other companies would have a motive to help and get some publicity. Probably, some people have been making fake donations ... but it's not our fault, and this might not be the correct measure. Because one person is a crook, everybody is now punished indiscriminately.

online:  So for every hundred dollars I might donate to your organization, I would have to pay an additional $20 taxes?

Philip: Yes, you would have to pay 20% of the donation in additional tax. Or you don't mention the donation at all, by not issuing a receipt so it's like it never happened. But tax deduction used to be a motive for donations and with this new regulation is no longer. We have some donors, mainly Greek people who live outside of Greece and are not Greek taxpayers. I felt really bad this summer when a 86 year old person, not particularly wealthy but very caring about animals, was asked to pay
200.000 drachmas over his 1.000.000 drachma donation. Naturally we offered to pay it for him, but he refused.

online: I can see some rehab people in North America reading this in Online and thinking "Those are the same problems we have here!"

Philip: Yes, a lot is pretty much the same I imagine. But what makes the difference is the different mentality, culture, politics and law, economic growth and the different species of animals.

online:  What other wildlife centers are there in Greece, and do you work with them?

Philip:  When we started there was only one - us. Now, fortunately, there are 4 more and that takes some of the burden off . There is the Sea Turtle Rehabilitation Center, run by the Sea Turtle Protection Society, so we no longer take in Sea Turtles and we send them over to them. There is the Monk Seal Rehabilitation Center, run by the society for the protection of the Monk Seal, and the Bear Rescue Center, run by Arctouros, a society for the protection of bears and wolves. Also, there is another small wildlife Hospital on the island of Paros, five hours from Piraeus Harbor.  All the societies who deal with threatened species protection have understood the educational value of rehabilitation as a means of protection of the species. We have been working together and recently we have started to have national meetings twice a year for coordination of action, setting standards and so on. We are not so many - just five representatives meeting together. We also work closely with the Hellenic Ornithological Society for campaigns, bird protection issues, etc. They also advise us when and where to release certain difficult species of birds.


online:  Is there any cooperation between rehabilitators in the various countries throughout Europe? I know there were some organizations that started, but perhaps you could describe the European community in the context of your organization.

Philip: There was an attempt to create the "European Wildlife Rehabilitation Association", but for some reason, after the first two conferences there was no follow up. I only attended the first one, the second one I missed because I was sick. I don't know what's going on now, but I think that if there was some coordination I would know about it.  Most of the contacts we have had were from people in England through Les Stocker. But we have also met people from Spain, France, Malta and heard about others elsewhere. In general I don't have a clear picture of what is going on in Europe and I feel that pretty soon something must be done about it. It's probable that many others feel the same and something will happen.

online:  There's a very whimsical question that we ask everyone that we interview. Which animal do you most closely relate to?

Philip: It's funny... my favorite animals are ducks! I like them. They're funny, they're communicative and clever. But some of the most beautiful ducks were ones I saw here - the wood ducks!

online: Now that you've seen it first hand, what is your opinion of wildlife rehabilitation in North America?

Philip: From what I've seen... many things are the same, but many things are structured differently. Sometimes it's different in the way people work - the fact that you have independent rehabbers in some cases who do not belong to a bigger organization. That's one thing that I've noticed that maybe makes a difference in the way people work. I haven't seen many centers yet. I've seen Marge's place and the Raptor Center in Minnesota , both very impressive in different ways...

online: Maybe I'll ask you the same question after you've been through California and Oregon!

Philip: Yes, I don't have a really clear idea... generally, the people that I've met here at the conference know much more than most people in Greece.  The level of education is higher, since rehab here has a longer history. Also there are more special products, books, etc.. There is still nothing written in Greek. The audience is too small to publish a book specialized in rehabilitation.

online:  You've seen the IWRC at work, and you have belonged to the IWRC for a time. In your opinion, which direction should we be headed?

Philip:  It's got to become more international - I mean spread out of America. It's got to reach the other continents and countries, translate material into different languages, getting help from active rehabbers all over.  IWRC has to get appropriate contacts in each country. It should become a worldwide network, able to respond in emergency situations, help rehabilitation wherever necessary and provide education for public and rehabbers alike.

online:  Do you think that this is achievable in a realistic time period?

Philip:  I don't know... I don't think it would be so difficult.   The Internet has made things much easier now. Soon we might have virtual meetings...

online:  I mean, do you think we could find enough people like you, and Jane and I, who would be willing to work at this?

Philip: Everybody, I think, has to understand that belonging to an international organization will make all of us individually stronger in our countries, areas etc. Everyone has to start thinking in two scales:  local, meaning my own country my own problems, and international, the rest of the world. We can help the rest of the world and the rest of the world can help us. We are part of the same chain, and an organization is like an amplifier of what we do... and we can hear and get heard by others.

The Interview:

"Since I haven't subscribed to RaptorCare,  I did not know Philip.  When I met him on the first day of the Conference, he was wearing a T-shirt from Marge Gibson's Raptor Education Group, so I stopped him in the hall to find out who he was (these Conferences are like that - very friendly!)  In the next few days, Philip and I spent a lot of time together, chatting about various things and sampling cerveza!  In those few days, we struck up a friendship that I'm certain will last a long time. 

Philip is an intriguing man - just about what I would have imagined from someone who is living in what we North Americans consider the seat of western civilization, culture and learning.  Although his modesty belies it, Philip posesses a keen, quiet intelligence, and an excellent sense of humour.  He was very popular at the Conference, and I believe that he has made a lot of new friends.   He took this travel opportunity to visit many email friends and their centres during his North American stay - and even got caught in the south Texas flood!

As a representative of the International Committee, I'm looking forward to a long and fruitful alliance with Philip - he has already offered to translate much IWRC material into Greek, and he will be working closely with the Online Development Group to produce a multilingual IWRC online site. As could be seen from the interview, he is very actively involved in promoting rehabilitation and cooperation throughout the European community.

Good luck with your new Centre, Philip.  Like us, you have to fight bureaucracy to achieve your objectives,  but I'm sure your dedication and determination will triumph!