Row over greyhound exports to China

Protests are to be held in Dublin and London tomorrow against the export of Irish greyhounds to China.

The Irish Council Against Blood Sports (ICABS) will hold a demonstration outside the Department of Agriculture at lunchtime while the Campaign for the Abolition of Cruel Sports (CACS) and other groups will hold simultaneous protests in Dublin and outside the Irish embassy in London.

ICABS is seeking to highlight what it describes as the callous trade in Irish greyhounds to China’s only racetrack in the city of Macau.

“Irish dogs are being sent to their deaths to the Canidrome track where underperforming dogs are put down at the rate of one a day,” said the ICABS, in a statement.

“As many as 800 greyhounds are housed at the infamous Canidrome track in Macau, the only region of China where gambling is legal, with racing five nights a week on a track that is deemed by animal welfarists on the ground as too hard, resulting in injuries to dogs.

“If a greyhound does not finish in the top three in five races in a row, he/she is destroyed. It is reported that around 400 dogs are killed by lethal injection each year and every greyhound arriving at the track is dead within three years.”

The Macau Society for the Protection of Animals says more than 30 greyhounds die there every month.

Since 1963, thousands of Australian greyhounds were killed at the track, but last December two major airlines — Qantas and Cathay Pacific — refused to transport any more dogs from Australia to Macau.

According to CACS, this has created a shortage of racers at the Canidrome that is now being filled by Irish greyhounds.

“Once these have ceased to perform or impress in races, they will be disposed of in a dog slaughterhouse and the meat put on sale at markets or sold to restaurants,” said spokesperson John Fitzgerald.

In the Dáil last week, Agriculture Minister Simon Coveney said he was aware of the reports about conditions in Macau but that “once appropriate animal health and welfare certification requirements are met, dogs, including greyhounds, may be exported internationally, including to China”.