The pantomime of cruelty known as greyhound racing is slowly fading away, emitting a death rattle that matches the unpleasantness of what preceded it.
New Zealand has now banned the sport and Auckland’s Manukau Stadium held its final parade of sadism on 26 July. The country will permit no further greyhound racing after 1 August.
One supporter was finally prepared to offer some transparency into the notoriously opaque sport, telling activists who oppose the cruelty:
On Monday we’re gonna blow all our dogs away. Fuck you.
Owners of greyhounds abused for racing have been found to massacre their dogs in vast numbers, a practice known within the barbaric industry as ‘wastage’.
Edward Rennell, CEO of Greyhound Racing NZ, told reporters that the man who made the comments in this case was not actually a “licensed owner, so there were no dogs in his care”. His willingness to revel in the so-called sport’s reputation for cruelty is telling, however.
Greyhound racing vet reveals ‘barbaric’ treatment
Meanwhile in neighbouring Tasmania, a state of Australia, a vet has given extraordinary insider testimony into the horrific suffering endured by racing greyhounds.
Dr Alex Brittan is the former chief veterinary officer for Greyhound Racing New South Wales, another Australian state, located on the nation’s east coast.
Speaking to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) about his period in the role, Brittan said:
…what I learned during my time there was, on a personal level, heartbreaking. On a professional level, pretty devastating.
He continued:
Huge amounts of dogs are being produced. They’re being housed in appalling conditions. They’re raced at a frequency that is barbaric. Their injuries are, aside from a hit-by-car injury, they’re some of the most extreme and appalling injuries you can possibly imagine. The injury rates continue to go up. The death rates continue to go up.
And then once the dog has finished its athletic career, it’s supposed to be rehomed to a domestic couch. And this is something industry would have us believe is happening, but it’s not. The numbers don’t lie.
The number of dogs that aren’t rehomed are classified as backlog, and they tend to live out their lives in commercial kennels, akin to being in solitary confinement with no hope of ever being rehomed.
The ABC host asked Brittan why Tasmania doesn’t terminate the vile practice when it has the legal right to do so, and 70-75% of the population oppose the ‘sport’. Brittan’s answer was simple:
Money talks.
In yet another reminder of capitalism’s guarantee of creating concentrations of wealth and power that undermine democracy, the vet said:
Ten per cent are for it [greyhound racing]. And it’s that 10% which are leading the charge and bending the government’s desire to do what’s right for the animal and instead do what’s right for the gambling industry. The size of the gambling industry is something that flabbergasted me.
There’s $9.6 billion…[that] gets waged on greyhounds every year in Australia. It’s about a $40 billion a year churn when you take in the horses and the trots as well. So it’s a massive, massive industry.
Only Australia, England, the Republic of Ireland, the north of Ireland and the US still permit greyhound racing. Anglophone countries have a tendency to pass themselves off as a civilising force, yet often reveal themselves to be among the least civilised places on Earth.
English campaigners rally for end to greyhound cruelty
Scotland and Wales took a step away from that this year when both banned the activity within a day of each other in March. English campaigners want their government to follow and stepped up their efforts with a march on 25 July, marking 100 years since the first greyhound race.
At the march*,* campaigners highlighted the immense “scale of pain and suffering greyhounds have faced at the hands of the greyhound racing industry”.
Quoting figures from the Greyhound Board of Great Britain (GBGB), the governing body for greyhound racing, a statement from the League Against Cruel Sports said:
The trackside death toll has now reached 1,518 since 2017 when figures were first published, and the same figures show a shocking 38,816 injuries suffered by racing greyhounds during that period.
Large majorities supported the ban in Scotland and Wales. Polling across Britain and the north of Ireland in 2022 showed only 4% of people take an interest in the tormenting of greyhounds. Just 14% felt it important to British culture, and 81% prioritised the wellbeing of the dogs over the limited number of jobs the industry creates.
The signs of Andy Burnham being a different sort of prime minister are not promising. However, if he’s looking for low hanging fruit to signal a change of tack, a good place to start would be to ban cruel bloodsports like greyhound racing.
Featured image via the Canary
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