RSPCA Australia has uncovered another mass greyhound grave, today’s Sydney Morning Herald is reporting. The discovery of the remains of nine greyhounds at the property of a licensed trainer has prompted fresh calls for a ban on greyhound racing in New South Wales. Also found and seized at the property were nine sick and emaciated greyhounds who required urgent veterinary attention. Read the full story below…
This is sadly not the first such discovery. Three years ago, the bodies of 55 greyhounds were found in a mass grave in Bundaberg in Queensland. Investigators there said they believed the greyhounds were beaten to death or shot after a baseball bat and rifle were found nearby.
In 2006, The Sunday Times exposed the mass killing of greyhounds in the UK. In an article headed “Revealed: the man who killed 10,000 dogs”, it reported: “For the past 15 years David Smith, a builders’ merchant, has been killing healthy greyhounds no longer considered by their trainers to be fast enough to race. He buries them in a one-acre plot at the back of his home in Seaham, Co Durham. Last week The Sunday Times covertly filmed Smith on two consecutive days receiving greyhounds from trainers before killing them with a bolt gun, dumping them in the plot and covering over the ‘graves’ using a mechanical digger.”
Two of the dogs photographed “being led to their deaths by David Smith” were Irish dogs Clash Nitro and Rent a Flyer. After being killed, “Smith was photographed just moments later pushing the greyhounds’ bodies in a wheelbarrow to bury them behind his house. Both dogs were less than three years old when they were killed.” Before being exported to the UK, the two dogs had been raced at tracks in Youghal, Clonmel, Newbridge, Dublin, Thurles, Derry and Lifford.
Here in Ireland, an estimated 10,000 greyhounds go missing each year – believed killed and disposed of when found to be too slow to win races for owners.
In 2012, the decomposing remains of six greyhounds were found dumped in a quarry in Limerick. Marion Fitzgibbon of Limerick Animal Welfare described the horrific scene as follows: “There are five greyhounds that are fully recognisable and then there are portions of greyhounds. I saw a leg and a body almost severed in two, there is a lot of blood. The dogs that aren’t decomposed seem to have been shot in the head.”
At Newcastle West District Court the following year, a judge heard that John Corkery – “a well-known greyhound trainer, with 18 years’ experience” – handed two greyhounds over to a man to shoot them in the head because the dogs “showed no promise of chasing hares”. The Irish Examiner reported on April 26 2013 that Corkery was “avoiding paying a vet 80 euros to have each dog humanely put down by injection” and that the dogs were later found, along with four other greyhounds, rotting in the quarry. Limerick’s Live 95 FM reported that Corkery “told Gardai he saw nothing wrong with shooting a dog in the head”.
Greyhounds continue to be mercilessly killed around the country. One Irish trainer remarked online: “I’ve seen dogs being shot. It has to be done as there’s too many of them to rehome.” A former chairman of the Irish Greyhound Board admitted on Cork’s 96 FM that he believes it is “absolutely” okay for thousands of dogs to be killed and that racing couldn’t exist without the destruction of dogs.
ACTION ALERT
Say NO to the greyhound industry – don’t attend races or fund-raisers held at greyhound tracks. Distribute our “6 reasons to say NO to greyhound racing” leaflet outside greyhound tracks to encourage people to show compassion and boycott greyhound racing. You can download the leaflet at http://www.banbloodsports.com/ln170616.htm or order copies by emailing info@banbloodsports.com
Contact Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, Agriculture Minister Michael Creed and Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe and demand an end to the use of public funds to prop up the dying greyhound industry. Email “Stop funding the cruel greyhound industry” to taoiseach@taoiseach.gov.ie, leo.varadkar@oireachtas.ie, michael.creed@oir.ie, paschal.donohoe@oireachtas.ie, minister@per.gov.ie
An Taoiseach, Leo Varadkar
Government Buildings,
Upper Merrion St, Dublin 2
Telephone: +353 (0)1-6194020
Email: taoiseach@taoiseach.gov.ie, leo.varadkar@oireachtas.ie
Leave a comment on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/campaignforleo/
Tweet to: @campaignforLeo
Michael Creed TD
Minister for Agriculture
Kildare Street, Dublin 2.
Email: michael.creed@oir.ie
Tel: +353 (0)1-607 2000 or LoCall 1890-200510.
Leave a comment on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/michaelcreedtd
Tweet to: @creedcnw
Paschal Donohoe TD
Minister for Finance
Email: paschal.donohoe@oireachtas.ie, minister@per.gov.ie
Phone: +353 (0)1 6045810
Leave a comment on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PaschalDonohoe/
Tweet to @Paschald
Please sign and share our petition
Irish Government: Stop Giving Millions of Euro to Cruel Greyhound Industry
https://www.change.org/p/irish-government-stop-giving-millions-of-euro-to-cruel-greyhound-industry
RSPCA UNCOVER GREYHOUND MASS GRAVE IN WESTERN SYDNEY
Sydney Morning Herald, 12 July 2018
By Rachel Clun
The RSPCA has uncovered a mass greyhound grave in western Sydney, on the property of a licensed and registered greyhound trainer.
RSPCA NSW was tipped off about the Marsden Park property on July 3, and inspectors arrived to find an open pit containing the remains of nine greyhounds, RSPCA NSW acting chief inspector Andrew Clachers said.
“It’s confronting … and it’s quite a gruesome task that they then had to go through, to preserve the evidence of those deceased greyhounds.”
The grim discovery comes almost exactly two years after then-NSW premier Mike Baird banned greyhound racing in the state, only to reverse the ban just months later.
Federally, the RSPCA does not support greyhound racing because of “significant and entrenched animal welfare problems inherent in the greyhound racing industry”.
Mr Clachers said the main concern for local RSPCA inspectors and branches was simply the welfare of the animals.
“We will continue to advocate for improvements in greyhound welfare,” he said.
During the raid, senior RSPCA NSW inspectors also seized nine sick and emaciated dogs that had “such pressing and urgent veterinary needs that they required immediate treatment,” Mr Clachers said.
“Some of [the greyhounds] that we seized we had concerns as to whether they would make it, they were so ill.”
Three more greyhounds were seized on July 9, after written veterinary instructions for their treatment were not followed by the owner.
The dogs were suffering from a variety of conditions, including emaciation, internal parasites, fleas, severe dental disease, pressure sores and overgrown nails.
All the greyhounds have since been surrendered to the RSPCA, and the acting chief inspector said that, now they were in the care of RSPCA veterinarians, they were “all going fine”.
“I’ve gone down and seen some of them myself; they are appreciating the care and attention that they’re getting,” he said.
“We’ll seek to rehome them after they’ve been through an assessment process; they seem to be good-natured.”
A forensic veterinary pathologist has conducted an autopsy on the remains of the dead greyhounds, and Mr Clachers said more testing was under way to determine how and when the dogs died.
A spokesperson for the Greyhound Welfare Integrity Commission, which was launched as the industry regulator on July 1, said it was investigating the “serious alleged animal cruelty” alongside the RSPCA.
“Investigations are on-going and GWIC is providing the RSPCA with continued support,” the spokesperson said in a statement.
“Legally no further comment can be made as investigations are ongoing.”
Mr Clachers said the RSPCA had no history of complaints about the greyhound trainer from Marsden Park before this month.
The maximum penalty for aggravated animal cruelty is two-years’ imprisonment and $22,000 in fines, while charges of an act of cruelty or failing to provide veterinary treatment carry maximum penalties of six months’ imprisonment or $5500 in fines.
Greens NSW MP and the party’s animal welfare spokeswoman, Mehreen Faruqi, said: “The images are absolutely gruesome and show the consequences of an industry that treats animals as disposable commodities, to be discarded once they stop turning a profit.
“The fact that such cruelty is happening in 2018 shows that nothing has changed.
“This incident just shows that the second chance given to the industry was a huge mistake and all the promises they made to end the cruelty lack any kind of credibility.
“This is not yet another bad apple. This is evidence of continued systemic cruelty and disregard for animal welfare,” Dr Faruqi said.
“Barely a week goes by without continued deaths on tracks, drugging and animals being put down for entirely treatable injuries. The reality is that animals always suffer when they are used and abused for gambling.”
In a statement, PETA Australia spokeswoman Emma Hurst said this recent RSPCA investigation showed “the battle against the abuse of animals for entertainment and financial gain continues”.
“When the New South Wales government backflipped on the greyhound racing ban, we all knew that thousands of dogs would continue to suffer in this abusive and unjustifiable industry in which cruelty – including the mass slaughter of healthy dogs – is a business model for ‘success’,” Ms Hurst said.
She said the industry had already had “plenty of opportunities” to reform itself.
“The majority of Australians abhor the inherent brutality of greyhound racing,” she said.
“PETA urges everyone to stay away from the tracks.”
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/rspca-uncover-greyhound-mass-grave-in-western-sydney-20180712-p4zr03.html
RSPCA AUSTRALIA STATEMENT ON GREYHOUND RACING
RSPCA Australia considers that there are significant and entrenched animal welfare problems inherent in the greyhound racing industry. These include problems with over-supply, injuries, physical overexertion, inadequate housing, lack of socialisation and environmental enrichment, training, illegal live baiting, administration of banned or unregistered substances, export and the fate of unwanted greyhounds (high wastage and high euthanasia rates). http://kb.rspca.org.au/what-are-the-animal-welfare-issues-associated-with-greyhound-racing-in-australia_617.html
