Greyhound racing still struggling with doping and injuries

Last week we bought you the interview with a former Northern Eggs employee, who spoke out about the appalling treatment of hens at the colony cage farm. Today we’ll bring you the latest on that story.

And the greyhound racing industry is still grappling with doping and dog injuries, and now they want to build a new track at Christchurch’s beloved QEII Park.

What is Animal Matters?

Animal rights in Aotearoa New Zealand. Animal Matters is SAFE's podcast about all things animal rights and the issues impacting animals in Aotearoa. Will Appelbe and Courtney White discuss the latest current affairs impacting animals, the decisions of policymakers and government, and the complexities that surround the exploitation of animals.

Tena koe, nau mai haere mai. My name is Will Appelbe and you’re listening to Animal Matters.

Last week we bought you the interview with a former Northern Eggs employee, who spoke out about the appaling treatment of hens at the colony cage farm. Today we’ll bring you the latest on that story.

And the greyhound racing industry is still grappling with doping and dog injuries, and now they want to build a new track at Christchurch’s beloved QEII Park.

Animal Matters is bought to you by SAFE for animals. We release new episodes every week, so make sure you subscribe on Apple, Spotify, or whatever your favourite podcast platform is. You can also subscribe to our newsletter at safe.org.nz/animalmatters.

So last week on the show we bought you our interview with a former employee at the Northern Eggs colony cage farm. If you haven’t listened, it’s worth going back to it. It contains graphic depiction of animal abuse and cruelty, so it’s tough to listen to. But it’s important for our conversations about the egg industry going forward.

When we released the interview with the informant last Wednesday we also wrote to Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor with our concerns about Northern Eggs. This was the second time that compelling evidence has been presented against the farm for alleged animal abuse and cruelty, and both times they’ve been cleared by MPI.

His response? He passed it on to Associate Minister of Agriculture Meka Whaitiri, who we’ve yet to hear back from.

Northern Eggs issued a statement to the media. They refute the allegations, which isn’t really surprising. But they also took aim at the informant, calling them a disgruntled former employee.

To be fair, I’d be pretty disgruntled as well if I had to witness what the informant did. But that doesn’t make up for what’s been happening at this farm nor how Northern Eggs treat the birds in those cages.

Northern Eggs has commissioned so called independent auditors to conduct a welfare audit. I’m pretty sceptical of how thorough this audit would be, considering the informant told us that Northern Eggs will do a full clean up of their sheds before any inspections, either from MPI or supermarket auditors.

That said, there’s no doubt more to come on this story.

Given the greyhound racing industry was recently put on notice by the Government, you’d think they would be doing their best to keep their head down.

This was following the greyhound racing review. Animal Matters took a dive into the report a few weeks ago, and it identified three areas that need improvement. Data recording, transparency of all activities, and animal welfare generally.

Upon the Government’s release of the review, Racing Minister put the industry formally on notice, saying “either make the improvements needed or risk closure.”

But last Wednesday, instead of an all singing all dancing commitment to improved animal welfare, the Whanganui race track saw six injuries in a single day.

Two of the injured dogs suffered from broken legs, and a third dog is expected to have fractured its leg and is undergoing x-rays to confirm it’s injuries.

And doping is still a problem for the industry. In a judgement released this week by the Racing Integrity Board, greyhound trainer Craig Roberts was fined two thousand dollars after his dog Winnie Bale tested positive for a banned substance at Addington Raceway in July.

To make matters worse, this was the third time one of Roberts’ dogs had tested positive for banned substances.

Circling back to injuries though, one of the areas that the industry has been urged to focus on is reducing the numbers of injured dogs. One solution that has been mooted is to build straight tracks.

Traditionally, greyhounds race around an oval track, and all of New Zealand’s greyhound racing tracks are oval.

This is problematic because the overwhelming majority of injuries occour at the first turn.

Straight tracks are seen as a safer alternative. The greyhound racing industry in Australia have already built three straight tracks when modelling done by the University of Technology in Sydney suggested that these tracks would lead to less injuries.

Straight tracks still prove to be deadly, however. In 2020, there were 318 injuries at the straight track in Healesville, Victoria, and four deaths and 108 injuries at the straight track in Capalaba, Queensland.

That said, it appears that Greyhound Racing New Zealand want to explore straight tracks, and they’ve made an application to build one in Christchurch.

They’ve made a proposal to the Christchurch City Council to lease land at QEII Park, where they plan to build a straight track.
This would be part of a multi-million dollar commercial development of QEII park. The Park has a rich history. It was built for the 1974 Commonwealth Games but badly damaged during the 2011 Christchurch earthquakes. The old aquatic centre and stadium were demolished, and the preschool, driving range and golf course were closed. The aquatic centre has since been rebuilt, which opened in 2018.

With the commercial development on the horizon, the Christchurch City Council called for expressions of interest from people interest in leasing land to build and manage a sport and recreation complex.

Two proposals include a 13 million dollar multi-sport training and entertainment complex, and an archery range for the Christchurch Archery club.

The third proposal is Greyhound Racing New Zealand’s straight track.

Even if you put aside the animal welfare issues, a dog racing track would be a terrible use of this land. The east Christchurch community actually deserves better. The track will be used to broadcast dog races on Trackside TV, and it’s unlikely that local ratepayers will get any use out of the racetrack.

But ultimately this is an industry that injures and kills hundreds of dogs every year for gambling profits. Considering that the industry is now on notice, it would be unwise for the council to approve this proposal. And there are far better uses for QEII park, like the other two proposals that have been put forward.

Thank you for listening to Animal Matters. This podcast is bought to you by SAFE for Animals, New Zealand’s leading animal rights organisation, and produced by myself, Will Appelbe.

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Until next time, mā te wā