Ban Hare Coursing Site
The United States seems to be civilized when it comes to using live rabbits in greyhound racing; it is outlawed. That doesn’t mean that the racing industry does not use rabbits, or sometimes even kittens, to train their greyhounds. It was just a few years ago that the then President of the National Greyhound Association was stopped for a traffic citation somewhere in the mid-west and in the back of his pick-up truck was a load of many live, white rabbits. Now was he taking them home because he likes to eat rabbit? That’s what he told the police. A better guess was that he was taking the rabbits home to train his greyhounds with. So although it is outlawed in the United States, you may still find people such as the president of the National Greyhound Association hauling rabbits around. At the very least, this is a conflict of interests.
Ireland not only allows greyhounds to chase live rabbits and tear them apart for sport, but they also kill most of their racers when they are no longer winning. Marion Fitzgibbon, of Limerick Animal Welfare and Director of the American European Greyhound Alliance, told me that things were better now. Ireland is now adopting maybe 2% or 3% of their former racers. Many greyhounds used to be hauled away to Spain, sold at different auctions in different parts of the country. They would be loaded onto a truck into a cage just wide enough to fit the width of the dog. It was impossible for the dog to turn around and sometimes even move from a standing to laying position. Fortunately greyhound racing is no longer held in Spain. I have to assume the dogs are being haled elsewhere in the same vehicles. For more information regarding the ban of hare coursing, please refer to the website below.