History of Our Organization

Beginning around 1997, an informal group of individuals started to work together in an effort to improve the lives of animals on Karpathos.

 

By the year 2000, these same people realized that feeding strays or relocating a few to forever homes elsewhere did not solve the problem on the island — in many ways, it ended up exacerbating it. The first to spring into action to find a solution was Rita Weber (sadly she returned to Germany in 2003) who had contacts with a German animal welfare organization and managed to get a group of vets (including Dr. Martina Greve and Carsten Ritter) to do a spay and neuter campaign in May 2000.

The first legally established animal welfare group on the island was registered in 2002 and called 'Animal Friends Karpathos' and in Greek “Φίλοι των Ζώων-Κάρπαθος”. This organization was the product of the determination of: Alf B. Meier, Nikos Alexiou, Angelika Frangos, Rita Weber, Fred Baade, and vet Dr. Martina Greve. The initial elected officials were Vena Kamaratos, Margarita Alexiou and Patricia Moser. Many of our current board members and volunteers played an active role in the foundation of this group.
 
They were able to set up the “Animal Welfare Clinic” in the Konaki area of Pigadia (the island's capital). Wholly funded by donations, it treated all kinds of injured animals, and strove to alleviate the animal population problem by neutering and spaying stray animals.

 

This organization worked hard to try to control the stray animal population and to improve the health of all animals on Karpathos — not just cats and dogs. It was only been able to succeed with the help of a network of dedicated people, both locally and internationally. Sadly, the clinic ended up closing its doors in 2017, when Alf and his wife moved to the USA.

 

Alf recalls the year when a big change happened at the clinic where he was Veterinary Services Supervisor: