Greyhound Racing –
The NSW Government have introduced reforms to the State’s greyhound racing industry with the introduction of whole-of-life electronic tracking, aiming at protecting greyhounds throughout their racing careers and beyond.
A $3.6 million investment into the tracking technology has come from the Government to allow the Greyhound Welfare & Integrity Commission to take further measure to ensure that greyhound injuries and deaths are recorded and that dog disappearances do not occur.
Minister for Better Regulation and Innovation, Kevin Anderson spoke on the investment and what it will mean to the industry.
“This is a game-changer for greyhound welfare in NSW,” Kevin Anderson said.
“Once the new technology is implemented in the second half of this year, registered greyhounds will be sighted, scanned, and accounted for on an annual basis.
“The community has an expectation that GWIC can account for all registered greyhounds in NSW at all times.
“This new technology will guarantee the tracking and monitoring of every single registered greyhound across its life and ensure a safer and stronger industry.”
Although believing the investment is indeed a step in the right direction, Dennis Anderson, National President of the Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds (CPG) believes there is more to be done, particularly in order to protect greyhounds that are no longer registered once their racing careers are over.
“The system will only track greyhounds as long as they are either on the racing registrar or they have been retired to a ‘registered industry participant’,” Dennis Anderson said.
“If a dog is retired a private individual, the new system will not track it.”
Dennis Anderson cites the Greyhound Racing Act of 2017 as the reason for this, which limits the power of the GWIC to only tracking those dogs owned by industry participants.
“There will be an improvement in the welfare of greyhounds that are owned by industry participants only, so it is the dogs that are not owned by industry participants that we are concerned about.”
Dennis Anderson noted that the current retirement rules allow for an industry participant to have a greyhound retired to a friend of theirs who is not a registered industry participant.
He also expressed the CPG’s concern that dogs who are handed to private owners or councils pounds may end up as bait dogs for dog fighting rings, for Veterinary training specimens at universities, or used for blood donations to other dogs up ‘till death.
Whole-of-life tracking was one of the key recommendations accepted by the NSW Government when the Greyhound Industry Reform Panel reported on the greyhound racing industry in 2017, and the Government have stated their intention to explore connecting the new system to the new NSW Pet Registry.
Source:
Media Release (February 25), Kevin Anderson, NSW Government Minister for Better Regulation and Innovation.
Interview with Dennis Anderson (March 3), President of the Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds