NYMFAIO, Greece - Orphaned as an infant, three-year-old Patrick takes a wary view of visitors. He crouches low, licks his claws and starts humming - a bear's equivalent of thumb-sucking.

"It soothes him when he's stressed," says Melina Avgerinou, a caretaker at the Arcturos bear sanctuary in northern Greece.

Patrick's tale is typical of many bears that have found refuge in the Arcturos sanctuary at Nymfaio on the slopes of Mount Vitsi, some 600 kilometers northwest of Athens.

He was less than a month old when found wandering near the Greek-Albanian border, his mother apparently killed by poachers.

Too young to know the ways of the wild, he never learned to survive without human assistance. The sanctuary released him to nature when he turned one, but he sauntered back just over a month later.

"As he did not learn to fear humans, it's not safe for him in nature, so he will stay here for the rest of his life," Avgerinou says.

Like Patrick, others here have psychological and physical scars.

Barbara, an aged female, came from a Serbian zoo. Two decades on, she still paces nervously in her forest enclosure and shakes her head as if chained to a cage.

Three-year-old Usko was found in Macedonia as a baby. He was paralyzed from the waist down, so Arcturos staff - amazed by his zest for life - fashioned a wheelbarrow that enables him to move around in an area with flat surfaces.

Saved from poachers

Founded in 1992, Arcturos shelters bears and wolves mainly from the Balkans but has also taken large predators from as far away as Austria and Georgia.

In all more than 20 bears and seven wolves live in separate enclosed habitats in the villages of Nymfaio and Agrapidia - most of them rescued from Balkans poachers, animal collectors and restaurant owners who had them on display to amuse patrons.

The wolf colony is about to double as seven more are due to arrive from a zoo in Italy.

The upkeep of each bear is 15,000 euros ($17,880) a year, while a wolf costs 10,000 euros, he notes.

Arcturos also runs a program to save from extinction a local breed of Greek sheepdog that is perfectly attuned to local conditions.

"We have given over 800 puppies to farmers since 1999," says Vassilis.

"In contrast to other breeds, this sheepdog will not pursue and try to kill a predator," he adds.

In addition, the organization works with other environmental groups to educate farmers on how to protect their livestock from predators without resorting to guns and poison.

Agence France-presse