I think you're right about the badly thought out protests, and I'm quite willing to believe this one is different. The reasons you give are all excellent, although rather different from the original story I saw (which was that a guy had been killing dogs with a gun -- no suggestion that he had been doing so other than quickly and cleanly). The welfare issues you mention induce much more outrage in me than the shooting. I don't have much of a problem with dogs being shot quickly and cleanly when no longer required (I agree with you it seems a shame to breed them just for entertainment and then to be killed, but as I said I don't feel in a position to take the moral high ground when so many pigs (etc) are bred purely in order to be killed on my behalf). Indeed, I think it's much more respectable to take responsibility and have your unwanted animal killed cleanly than to dump it on an animal charity or whatever. However, dogs being kept in poor conditions & not killed cleanly is obviously a massive animal welfare issue. I am stunned if the greyhound racing industry is immune from animal welfare legislation. Are you sure it isn't just immune from "pet" welfare legislation but subject to its own legislation? If it is exempt from all legislation, that is truly outrageous. - Neuromancer
What the RSPCA says about the situation is this: "Greyhound racing in the UK falls into two categories, those tracks registered by the National Greyhound Racing Club (NGRC) and the non-registered independent sector. There are 31 tracks and more than 9,000 greyhounds registered by the NGRC2 in Britain and there are 21 unregistered dog tracks outside of their control.3 The independent sector is unregulated and standards are entirely dependent on the track manager."
DEFRA says: "the legislation in the UK governing farmed animal welfare is very comprehensive. However, protection of non-farmed animals has not kept up with these developments."
The regulation of the 'registered' tracks is carried out by the NGRC, which is not really an independent body. Although in theory the 'regulated' tracks should be better, there are far too many eye-witness reports that suggest this is not the case, and even on those tracks dogs are not getting appropriate treatment, doping is widespread, dogs are running on tracks that are designed to cause injury, not exercised, not given basic healthcare, etc.
The new Animal Welfare Bill 2006 at the moment looks like it will require the industry to be self-regulating. Given that the regulators seem to have wholly overlooked this guy and his moderately large dog disposal operation and are now acting all shocked and surprised, this is not promising.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2006-07-18 08:38 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-07-18 09:36 am (UTC)"Greyhound racing in the UK falls into two categories, those tracks registered by the National Greyhound Racing Club (NGRC) and the non-registered independent sector. There are 31 tracks
and more than 9,000 greyhounds registered by the NGRC2 in Britain and there are 21 unregistered dog tracks outside of their control.3 The independent sector is unregulated and standards are entirely dependent on the track manager."
DEFRA says: "the legislation in the UK governing farmed animal welfare is very comprehensive. However, protection of non-farmed animals has not kept up with these developments."
The regulation of the 'registered' tracks is carried out by the NGRC, which is not really an independent body. Although in theory the 'regulated' tracks should be better, there are far too many eye-witness reports that suggest this is not the case, and even on those tracks dogs are not getting appropriate treatment, doping is widespread, dogs are running on tracks that are designed to cause injury, not exercised, not given basic healthcare, etc.
The new Animal Welfare Bill 2006 at the moment looks like it will require the industry to be self-regulating. Given that the regulators seem to have wholly overlooked this guy and his moderately large dog disposal operation and are now acting all shocked and surprised, this is not promising.