If you are not already regularly visiting the Greyhound Star website then you really are missing some interesting articles. Below is an article by the Editor which gives his view of some of the points raised in the programme which I have copied and pasted (I trust that is within the rules) ***************************************************************** While for most part the findings of the analysis raises serious issues, on the other hand nothing was identified which could not be fixed and there is every reason to believe that IGB could, within a short number of years, become a financially viable entity drugs free and with an impeccable record on animal welfare. The future now depends on the choices made by the organisation Recognise the quote? It is taken from the executive summary of the report used to flail the Irish greyhound industry in last weeks RTE report. Obviously (!) it wasnt used in the programme. I hadnt read the report when I ran the Editors Chair last week which was written before the programme was broadcast. I have now read the report, and quite honestly, I am staggered by its ineptitude. For a start the figures are so old as to be worthless. The reports adds and averages litters numbers born between 2009 and 2015 and reaches an average figure of 2,952. A more honest approach would be to note that litter numbers are in continuous and steady decline to a point that the 2018 figure was 2,344 litters. (I realise that the report was published prior to that date, but the decline could have been estimated). That miscalculation makes a first dent of 21% error in the total number of greyhounds being assessed. All their calculations are based on this fundamental flaw. They also underestimated the number of dogs coming to Britain. GBGB registered 6,392 Irish dogs in 2018, the estimate was 6,250. No mention of exporting anywhere else. One minute Pakistan and China are up to their ears in exploited Irish greyhounds. You really cant have it all ways guys. The problems start early in the report of 1,000 more greyhounds each year than required to sustain a greyhound racing industry. To a certain extent, that statement gives a clue to what the report seems to be trying to achieve. Forget, exporting to Britain, or anywhere else. Forget coursing, the report is saying this is our view on how many dogs would be required to service Irelands greyhound tracks. I stand by all my points in the previous article and will try not to repeat them here. However, some clarification might help. Just one example. In my previous article, I noted that roughly half of all Irish greyhounds born come to Britain. (That should be good news. . . as the report states: On a positive note, dogs exported to the UK are accounted for and likely to be looked after.) So half gone. Take out hare coursers (the report estimates 15% which seems fair) and pup mortality (5% seems very low), the biggest hole, by far, relates to dogs who spend their entire racing careers in Ireland. Now I dont know how many dogs we are talking about, but there are some clues. For example, last week, there were 358 races in Ireland. I dont have the resources to check out every runner, but lets assume they are all six dog races. That is 2,148 runners. Of the winners, 5 were 2014 whelps, 27 were 2015 whelps, and 100 were 2016 whelps. Proportionately, is it wrong to assume that those aged groups would be spread across all the runners, instead of just the winners? They contribute to 37% of the wins Now those estimated 795 greyhounds (37% of 2,148) are extremely unlikely to come to Britain, or anywhere else. They are past their likely sale date. While the remaining 63% of 2017 and 2018 whelps must include greyhounds destined for Britain, surely many must inevitably remain in Ireland as next years older crop? How many? I truthfully wouldnt want to guess. Nor would I want to estimate how many available greyhounds were sat in the kennels last week unable to get a race. This is just a snapshot of available greyhounds in a single week. Moving on the report makes assumptions that all young greyhounds must be on the RMS (Race Management System). But only 66% of the pups which in theory should be available for registration were actually registered for the five years 2011 to 2015.. . .28% of them have no race records which means they have never raced. Once again some will no doubt have been sold to the UK but the variance is far too large to be explained by that item alone. PLAIN WRONG! many of Irelands leading breeders including the Sean and Michael (Droopys) Dunphy , Ian (Swift) Greaves and Liam (Ballymac) Dowling frequently sell pups with no Irish form. There is SO SO MUCH MORE that is nonsensical, illogical and just wrong about this report, but I will spare my weary reader. To be charitable the authors were struggling to comprehend the complexities of the greyhound industry. However, the greatest mistake belongs to IGB. They shouldnt have binned the bloody thing, they should have burned it first.
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