Maria Daines
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11/3/2006 9:46:38 PM
March For Greyhounds Sat 18th November 2006
From: Greyhound Action
Sent: Thursday, November 02, 2006 12:58 AM
Subject: March for Greyhounds - please try to be there
March for Greyhounds
London - Saturday, November 18th
Please try to be there!
Greyhound Action has received the following message about the March for Greyhounds, which is being held in London on Saturday, November 18th:-
On 16th July 2006 The Sunday Times published an article which revealed the mass killing of greyhounds. David Smith of Seaham, County Durham was found by an undercover reporter to be culling greyhounds by shooting them with a bolt-gun for £10 and burying them on his land. It is estimated Smith killed at least 10,000 racing greyhounds by this method. The full article can be found here:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2272307,00.html
Following this there was there an overwhelming demand for the opportunity to march and show objection to the continuing abandonment and killing of greyhounds. There was a massive interest in this on animal rescue forums and from various animal rescues. Considerable efforts have been made to put this event in place.
The March for Greyhounds is scheduled to take place on Saturday 18th November. Meeting at Whitehall Place, 1200. Departing at 1230.
Route: Whitehall Place, Whitehall, Cockspur St, Pallmall East , St James Park , Piccadilly , Hyde Park Corner, Park Lane , Hyde Park
Arrive Hyde Park approx 1330 for Rally
The march is being organised by greyhound rescue groups and is on the theme of "Stop the Slaughter". The idea of this is so that a broad spectrum of groups with concerns about the fate of greyhounds can take part.
This means that many of the groups on the march will not be opposed to greyhound racing as such and so will be calling for reforms rather than for an end to the dog racing industry.
We have deep concerns about this march not calling for the total abolition of the greyhound racing industry and for a total boycott of the industry by the public.
The present government is far more concerned about persecuting the protectors of animals than in protecting animals from persecution, so we don't hold out much hope of legislation being brought in to abolish commercial greyhound racing in the near future.
This, however, is not the point.
The best hope for the protection of greyhounds lies in the hands of the general public. The greyhound racing industry has been in decline for decades, with the closure of dozens of tracks, because of falling attendances.
Fewer tracks = fewer races = less demand for greyhounds to be produced = fewer greyhounds bred = fewer put to death.
The key to ending the dog racing industry and putting a stop to the mass-slaughter of greyhounds is
to do our utmost to encourage even more of the public not to attend, or bet on, dog racing.
In order to best achieve this, a clear message needs to be conveyed to the public that commercial greyhound racing is totally unacceptable and needs to be totally done away with.
Those who limit their call to "better welfare measures" or "independent regulation" may well have the best interests of the dogs at heart, but they are actually harming our campaign to bring commercial greyhound racing to an end. This is because many members of the public will interpret what they are saying as meaning that the dog racing industry is basically OK and just needs a few reforms, so making it harder for us to persuade people to boycott the industry.
We have little faith that independent regulation will do very much to improve the fate of the dogs, if this government has anything to do with it. The Blair regime has consistently supported the persecutors of animals to the extent that vivisection has increased, live-exports have been resumed, anti-hunting legislation is weak and ill-enforced and draconian laws have been brought in to attempt to control the activities of animal protection campaigners. Not that we believe
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