ALTHOUGH more than half of the senators have vowed to oppose passage of any dog-racing bill in their chamber, funny things do happen often enough on the way to the forum (with apologies to Stephen Sondheim who wrote the music and lyrics of the Broadway play). So we do not think it out of place today—when the nation is still mourning for the victims and outraged by the savagery of the perpetrators of the Maguindanao massacre—to join the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) and the Philippine Animal Welfare Society (PAWS) in warning against the possibility that House Bill 5291, which the House has passed and is now in the Senate, would be approved by the senators and then be signed by President Gloria Arroyo and therefore become law.
House Bill No. 5291, titled “An Act Granting The Fox New Millennium Amusement Club Inc. [FNMACI] A Franchise to Construct, Operate and Maintain Greyhound Racetrack in Any Place Within the City of Mandaue, Province of Cebu,” if it becomes law will bring systematic cruelty to dogs to our country.
There is a second House bill, HB 5648, filed on December 17, 2008, titled “An Act Granting the Southeast Asia Greyhound Racing Club, Inc. A Franchise to Construct, Operate and Maintain a Greyhound Racetrack in Rizal or Pampanga or Laguna. It was approved on second reading on March 4, 2009. It is now in the House Committee on Rules. Printed copies were distributed in April to all the congressmen.
A cruel affair
We believe PAWS and PETA when they say that Greyhound racing is cruel: it will lead to massive greyhound breeding and killing. More dogs will be bred than can be used in races. Owners will work to produce good racers and kill dogs that aren’t. This is what happens in countries that have greyhound racing.
In the United States, about 20,000 surplus greyhounds are killed every year. They are not winner material and retired racers are too numerous and costly to keep alive. A greyhound’s racing career is over when it is about 3.5 to 4 years old. What to do with the retiree who is likely to live for at least 9.5 more years?
PAWS estimates that with greyhound racing our dog population of 9.6 million (3.2 million of which are strays or homeless) will increase a lot. Of course, in the Philippines, where dogs are a delicacy to some people, greyhound meat could provide delightful meals.
PAWS says it has been receiving many reports from concerned citizens in towns and cities that are poisoning, drowning, gassing or selling dogs to the illegal dog meat trade. These towns have no budget for properly doing euthanasia on dogs.
There are only four Bureau of Animal Industry-accredited shelters in the whole country. One of these is the PAWS-owned-and-run animal shelter. PAWS urges government to effectively prevent pet overpopulation or surplus animals. It says that even without greyhound racing here, “we already have a problem that is not being addressed—unregulated breeding of purebred dogs and non-availability and non-affordability of spay-neuter surgeries which will prevent every pet dog of each Filipino family from producing at least three puppies per year.” This means the dog population would shoot up.
And most of these would become homeless and victims of cruelty. (Unless they are eaten.)
Greyhound racing says PAWS “cannot be operated in a human manner.”
Dogs as commodities
“The reason why the greyhound racing industry is inherently cruel is because it treats dogs as commodities. It is a form of gaming in which the amount of money a dog generates determines his or her expendability.”
Despite strict animal welfare laws in the US and other countries that allow greyhound racing, these acts of cruelty are done to the dogs as part of the industry:
“Greyhounds are kept at track kennels in stacked cages, often muzzled, for a total of 18 to 22 hours per day.
“Many tracks use wooden crates which get soaked in urine, making sanitary conditions difficult
“Greyhound adoption groups regularly report that incoming greyhounds suffer from an incredible variety of afflictions. Untreated conditions and injuries such as missing or broken toes, broken hocks and incredible internal (whipworms, hookworms, tapeworms, coccidia and giardia) and external (fleas, ticks, mites) parasites are common. Teeth and gums frequently show advanced signs of neglect-related disease and wea, attributable to diet, as well as stress related trauma from chewing on available materials in the environment (stress/boredom precipitated).
“Dogs are routinely fed ‘4-D Meat’ the meat of dead, diseased, dying or downed [unable to walk] animals deemed unfit for human consumption by the USDA. The micro-pathogen, drug and diseased laden meat can cause the dogs to become ill. The meat is used because it is cheap.”
PAWS declares that “Greyhound racing is immoral and unethical by its very nature—the reason why it is being boycotted and strongly opposed by many international organizations.”
Another important point is that greyhound racing contradicts the spirit of and the rationale for the Philippine Animal Welfare Act (Republic Act 8485), a PAWS supported law passed in 1998.
Mahatma Gandhi’s words
That law entered our book of statutes not just for the sake of animals but also because, as one of the world’s most beloved ethical paragons, the late Mahatma Gandhi, said, “The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated.”
We call on the senators to do as they had vowed: reject House Bill 5291 and other bills that would bring greyhound and other forms of dog-racing to our country.
Source: newsroom - meattradenewsdaily.co.uk
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