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Greyhound racing’s welfare success shouldn't be ignored

Greyhound racing has been banned in NSW. (Zchangu/Wikimedia Commons)
Roar Guru
23rd March, 2015
21

As greyhound racing authorities grapple with the live baiting scandal, another animal welfare aspect of the sport needs to be addressed: overbreeding.

Unlike live baiting, the sport has taken steps to reduce overbreeding.

So what has been done about this and how can the success or failure of these actions serve as a model to improve animal welfare?

What is overbreeding and how do we measure it?
If there are more greyhounds bred than required to race, you have a problem. Litters need to be registered within 14 days of whelping in order to race, and a fee is charged for a greyhound to be named when they are 14 months old or above.

We can use these two figures to get reliable estimates of what the level of overbreeding is, and how it has changed over time.

What are the numbers?
Greyhounds Australasia publishes these statistics.

I have removed the numbers for New Zealand, and multiplied the litters by 6.3 (I took a sample to find the mean), then graphed them with the numbers bred in blue, and number of greyhounds named in red. I’ve performed a simple linear regression on each, and two things stand out.

The first is the number of greyhounds that have been named has stayed fairly constant at around 13,000. In contrast, the number of greyhounds whelped has reduced by approximately 470 pups per year over the past 11 years. If these trends continue, then the two lines will intersect.

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Of course, that can’t happen, because there will be a proportion of pups that won’t make the track from illness, misadventure or are too aggressive. We don’t know what that proportion of pups would be, but it appears breeders are determined to find out empirically what that is.

We therefore have a best estimate that the number of greyhounds bred that are not named will have reduced from approximately 9,000 to 4,000 a year. As a fraction of the total population, 60 per cent of greyhounds would be named at the start of the time series, by 2013 it would be 77 per cent.

This substantial reduction in numbers bred almost certainly reduces the number of greyhounds that owners and adoption agencies can’t find homes for post-racing.

How has this been achieved?
By any objective measure, this has been a success for the sport in terms of improving animal welfare, but how did this happen?

Greyhound racing is regulated within state boundaries, and New South Wales and Victoria dominate the breeding numbers. NSW has traditionally had high percentages of named greyhounds, often over 70 per cent. This was not the case with Victoria, however, and GRV has made a conscientious decision to improve these numbers.

They did this by engaging with breeders and reinforcing the message that it was for the benefit of all to not breed with bitches that would have marginal prospects of producing racing greyhounds. In NSW, successful breeders have been vocal in communicating with other breeders how they are able to consistently produce high ratios of greyhounds that make the racetrack.

This has led to a culture within that community that minimises overbreeding.

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What can be learnt from this?
This shows that it is possible to make substantial improvements in animal welfare in racing in a fairly short timeframe. Importantly it is not just about writing rules and enforcing them, it is about continually educating the people responsible for animal welfare and defining the culture of the sport.

Racing exists in a social and cultural context that can be changed in the same way as any culture can, increasing the awareness of problems, convincing people that changes are in everyone’s interest and using an evidence-based approach to improving this culture.

I’m optimistic that the sport of greyhound racing can resolve not just the live baiting problems in the sport, but any risks to animal welfare that the sport has, with a similar model to this at its core. After all, if we can’t regulate the activity of a few dogs running around chasing a toy bunny, what does that say about the collective intelligence of our society?

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