The Animal Person Minute: On Greyhound Racing and Horse Slaughtering

While in Princeton over the weekend I was accused of favoring Charles in my blog. I have a gazillion photos of Violet to choose from, but not with my new camera, though, so they don’t count. Once again, here’s Charles. I was trying to get him with his ears up, and I wanted to show his musculature, and they best I could do was one ear and a couple of muscles. And that was after about thirty tries. I gave up. And this is all you’re gonna get.

I’ve got two topics today, one is a genuine abolitionist victory: two more greyhound tracks will be closing for live racing. One is in Wichita, Kansas, which is especially thrilling for me as Kansas actually changed its legislation to exclude greyhounds from the designation of dog (because they’re not bred as pets), thereby making them unable to reap any benefits of pet protection laws. When it comes to abolishing greyhound racing, which is already dying, what Grey2k USA does is fights attempts to add slot machines and other types of gambling to the tracks. The gambling props up the industry, thereby preventing the dogs from being freed of being forced to race. The industry’s still dying, but with subsidies, slot machines and poker rooms, it’s kept alive.

Last week, Kansas voters rejected a proposal to approve slot machines at Wichita Greyhound Park, and without that boost in income, the track would not be able to survive and its owner, Phil Ruffin, who has been losing $200,000 a month, has said he’ll close it. Talk about a bad investment!

The other track to end live racing, due to "dismal attendance figures," is Tampa Greyhound track, that "will cease live racing indefinitely after the conclusion of August 18th’s evening performance." Evening performance? The poker room will remain open and simulcasting of races from other tracks will continue, as well. The track will supposedly care for the greyhounds housed at the facility until adoptive homes are found. So if you or anyone you know lives in or near Tampa (tater, I’m talking to you), think about adding a greyhound to your home. You won’t regret it.

There are 36 operational tracks remaining in 13 states, with Florida, of course, being the biggest loser of a state with the most tracks, by far. If you live in a state where there’s a track, I’m sure you’re telling everyone not to go, as greyhounds aren’t here for us to make money off of. But what you also need to do is tell your gambling friends to stay away from tracks that have poker rooms and slot machines, as every time they go to the track, even to play poker, they’re hurting the dogs because they’re helping keep the track alive.

The other topic for today comes from Ted Pappas, the Executive Director of Encyclopedia Brittanica, which as a blog that had a post about horse slaughter in America yesterday written by Gregory McNamee. Now, I don’t know if anyone at Encyclopedia Brittanica knows anything about abolition, but I think this is a fine time to enter a mainstream national discussion in a civil, informative, non-hostile way. Though I don’t think anyone in their right mind is for the slaughter of horses, I understand the place culture plays in this discussion, similar to the dogfighting discussion, and I see the fetish aspect, I’m somewhat appalled that so many people are in an uproar over the slaughter of maybe a couple hundred thousand horses, while ten billion animals in the unfortunate position of being less culturally esteemed, get slaughtered in ways just as brutal or worse, and most people don’t bat an eyelash.

There’s a fabulous opportunity to address animals as property in the post, with the following: "[I]ndustry lobbyists set to work mounting a vigorous opposition on the
Senate side, one that centered on the argument that animals constitute
private property and so banning the slaughter was an unconstitutional
restraint of trade." This is one of those times when the property component is front and center, and not just from an abolitionist’s point of view. I’ll be commenting as soon as I can. When you comment, remember that most Americans don’t understand that animal welfare doesn’t equal animal rights, and when people say animal rights they’re not necessarily talking about the same thing. Be clear and concise with whatever you decide to write, and be kind.