Stop Tasmanian Animal Cruelty endorses the comments made by the RSPCA’s Peter West calling for the State government to ban greyhound racing in Tasmania. Spokesperson Suzanne Cass said that NSW Premier Mike Baird and his Deputy have made a courageous and landmark decision based on common decency.
‘The greyhound industry here claims that the ‘sport’ is conducted lawfully, but of course they would say that. It’s an industry that operates in the shadows away from any sort of independent scrutiny.
No enquiry is going to be told how many trainers are using live animals as baits. Here we have an industry that is fundamentally and systemically cruel, and it sees thousands of perfectly healthy dogs destroyed for no better reason than that they cannot run fast enough.
I was at our vet’s last year with my dog, and there was a man there with a greyhound standing on all four legs. He claimed that it had a broken leg – but it would not have been bearing weight on all four legs if that was the case. He was called into the surgery and came out without the dog. I asked the receptionist if he had left the dog to be destroyed, and she said “yes, and it’s the third one today”. That is one vet clinic in one day, so how big is this slaughter of healthy dogs in the state?’
Ms Cass said that the State’s pnquiry was taking far too long, and the outcome is entirely predictable. Greens leader Cassy O’Connor was removed as the Chair of the pnquiry for attending a rally against the greyhound industry.
‘This inquiry is a foregone conclusion’, Ms Cass contiinued. ‘Peter West is absolutely right in calling for it to be abandoned, and for the Tasmanian government to follow the lead of NSW and we salute him for that. We urge the community to contact the Premier, demanding that he show some humanity, follow the lead of Mike Baird and ban this so-called ‘sport’ now’.
Spokesperson Suzanne Cass, Stop Tasmanian Animal Cruelty
