Today is the start of the pheasant killing season
From today, millions of mass-produced, often factory-farmed, pheasants will be targets for shooters.
Posted 01 Oct 2024
Posted on the 15th May 2008
Great Leighs – the first new racecourse to be built in Britain since 1927 – will see Animal Aid hold a demonstration on its formal, public opening day on 28 May.
Date: 28 May 2008
Time: 1300 hrs
Location: Main Entrance, Great Leighs Racecourse, Essex
Animal Aid’s Spectre of Death – a Victorian lady dressed in dark, gothic robes, wearing a striking hat that features a model race horse tumbling over a hurdle – will be amongst the protestors at the course, alerting race-goers and the media to the number of horses killed on racecourses across Britain. There have been more than 200 on-course fatalities since March 2007.
The racecourse at Great Leighs has been beset with problems, with racing on the Polytrack surface taking place ‘behind closed doors’ since 20 April. After just 16 races, the course witnessed its first equine death. St Andrews (IRE), an eight-year-old gelding, pulled up lame after just half a mile of the Epping Forest Handicap at the Essex racecourse on 30 April. Due to the severity of his injury, the horse was destroyed.
Says Animal Aid Director, Andrew Tyler:
‘If Great Leighs is supposed to represent state-of-the-art, safe, modern racing, then the outlook is depressing. The death of St Andrews, after just 16 races on a new surface at a new racecourse, is shameful. The industry repeatedly claims that courses are safe and that horses are in good health, yet up and down the country, horses are dying week in and week out. It is time to take the vital matter of horse welfare out of the control of the British Horseracing Authority, and ensure that these vulnerable animals are afforded proper protection.’
From today, millions of mass-produced, often factory-farmed, pheasants will be targets for shooters.
Posted 01 Oct 2024
Posted 24 Sep 2024