In the last three years, the Australian greyhound racing industry has been failing to rehome sufficient dogs, after considering them surplus to the requirement because they no longer benefit those who are exploiting them for profit. The Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds (CPG) has reported that the industry only rehomes around 2,000 dogs a year (a figure that has not increased since 2017-18). In 2020–21 the industry bred six times more dogs than rehomed them, creating a big animal welfare problem not only during the racing age of all these dogs but afterwards too.
A new 2022 report on this issue from CPG states that “This means the racing industry will continue to fail miserably in convincing the community it has reformed.” Kylie Field, CPG’s national spokesperson, said community-run rescue groups rehomed more greyhounds than the industry in all states except Queensland and Western Australia. She said to the Guardian “It’s a grassroots community movement to keep these dogs safe and alive and rehabilitated…There are more greyhounds sitting in houses now than there probably ever has been…The breeding numbers are still way too high to ever, ever rehome the amount of greyhounds that there are out there.”
A 2021 poll of 1,052 Australians commissioned by the Greens and conducted by Lonergan Research has found that 54% of respondents support a ban on greyhound racing, and 55% of respondents agree that racing animals like horses and greyhounds for gambling and entertainment is cruel. In the past, campaigns for the reform of the greyhound racing industry outnumbered those for its complete abolition, but this has changed now. For instance, in the UK, all major anti-cruel sports organisations, vegan or not, are being calling for a ban since 2017, when it become obvious that all attempts to reform the industry failed.
