Ban the bolt

THE inhumane practice of killing greyhounds using a captive bolt gun should be made unlawful, though at present it is not illegal.

The Ban the Bolt campaign is asking Liz Truss, the Secretary of State for the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs, to outlaw this practice, which is used by greyhound owners simply because it is cheaper than euthanasia by lethal injection as carried out by a veterinary surgeon. More than half the greyhounds bred annually are “disposed of” each year.

In 2006, an undercover newspaper investigation into the “killing fields” of greyhound racing claimed around 10,000 greyhounds were killed by one builder’s merchant, who legally used a bolt pistol to shoot the dogs in his field before he buried them in a one-acre plot at the rear of his County Durham home.

The public should be told these shocking facts so they can add their support to the campaign and ask their MPs to speak out against it and get the law changed.

Kay Race

Norham

Berwick-upon-Tweed