Campaigns - VAFAs campaign against Jumps Racing continues. Jumps racing (hurdles and steeplechase) kills horses at twenty times the rate of normal racing The racing industry in Victoria, Minister for Racing Rob Hull Flying Fox bat advocates Melbourne VIC

Campaigns - Jumps racing

Racing Victoria’s partial about-turn

DECISION TO END JUMPS RACING ANNOUNCED - and then partially withdrawn.

On the 27th of November 2009 Racing Victoria Ltd issued a media release stating that jumps racing would end at the conclusion of the 2010 season. For the entire release google: Jumps racing in Victoria to end after 2010 season.

Unfortunately the jumps racing sector of racing was able to persuade the Board of Racing Victoria to allow a conditional reprieve. Racing Victoria then announced that it would allow the 2010 season and 2011 season if certain conditions were met.

The conditions are

- a fifty percent reduction on 2009 deaths. Eight horses died while jumps racing in 2010. If four horses are killed on track this should be the trigger for the end of the season and of jumps racing without any further ado.

- a reduction in the fall rate of jumps horses from over 5 percent to three percent

- a minimum of eight horses in eighty percent of races

Racing Victoria will make $500,000 dollars available to assist jumps racing to survive.

How?
A modification of the jumps is to occur - again. The stated intention is to make them safer though every such effort has failed since 1986. How are the "new" jumps to be tested? How is ’safety’ to be measured? What if they are no safer? Will the season go ahead with jumps acknowledged as sub-optimal or unsafe? What if a horse or human is hurt or killed over these obstacles?? These are important questions.

If any of the above conditions are not met then Racing Victoria should call an immediate end to the season.

We will maintain our work in bringing to the public the facts about jumps racing and would like to take this opportunity to thank all who have contributed to the campaign over the past ten years.

VAFA’s campaign against Jumps Racing will be maintained until jumps racing is abolished -

Jumps racing (hurdles and steeplechase) kills horses at twenty times the rate of normal racing. Last year thirteen horses died of their injuries or were euthansed on track during these races. Legs are fractured and necks are snapped as the horses crash into the ground. Across thirty years the average death rate for jumps racing is one fatality for every 115 starters.

For normal racing it is one fatality for every 2150 starters. VAFA has protested trackside and lobbied the racing industry and the Victorian government for nearly ten years. As a result the racing industry in Victoria has spent more than a million dollars trying to reduce the death rate. A major review occurred at the end of 2008 and the Minister for Racing Rob Hull has said that jumps racing is "on notice" and that "we cannot have another season like this year". Well, we have. The 2009 season has proved equally deadly with ten horses killed. There is no reason to believe the 2010 season will be any less deadly.

VAFA and Lawrence supporting Coalition (CPR) protesters at Sandown Racecourse 30.8.09

Support Racing Victoria’s decision to end by
emailing information@racingvictoria.net
Express your approval and request they maintain the line against those who are unwilling to face the reality that some activities belong in the past and killing horses as part of a public spectacle is one of them.

Using animals in this deadly manner for
human entertainment is unethical, unnecessary
and indefensible. Do not pander to backward-looking elements within our culture.

      Some Are Bent hits the Turf Warrnambool 6.5.10                         Pride of Westbury breaks his neck Warrnambool 6.5.09

Victorian jumps boss Rodney Rae says "From an animal welfare perspective jumps racing does a fantastic job" (Moonee Valley Leader 18.5.10) Sirrocean Storm’s recent death shown on You Tube was an example of cruelty par excellence. The first Australian protest was in Sydney 1848.
Jumps racing is illegal in NSW.

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BAT ADVOCACY - CONSERVE AUSTRALIA’S
WILD HERITAGE!

VAFA has advocated for bats since 2001 when it ran a successful campaign to save Melbourne’s colony of Grey headed flying-foxes.

Flying foxes are in decline across the continent. Grey headed flying-foxes have declined around ninety nine percent in the past 100 years from habitat loss and shooting by fruit growers. Flying foxes are a keystone species that create millions of trees each year through pollination and seed dispersal.
They are essential for healthy trees and forests and they can pollinate over long distances.
Nevertheless they are under threat from many quarters. Melbourne’s recent heat-event in February killed around twenty five percent of the state’s Grey headed flying-foxes.

NSW continues to issue farmers permits to shoot flying foxes in spite of evidence showing its cruelty and ineffectiveness. Shooting in the dark means that many animals suffer a slow death from shotgun pellet wounds while dependent young whose mothers are killed are left in the colony to starve to death. This is a barbaric and outmoded way of treating one of our iconic native species. Shooting is now banned in Queensland with most growers improving their profits by netting trees instead - no more killing.

                                                                                                                                                            Mother & Big Baby! Photographer Viv Jones
YOU CAN HELP!
Email NSW Minister for Environment John Robertson
office@robertson.minister.nsw.gov.au
Ask him to end the issuing of flying-fox shooting permits in NSW
Or write:
Governor Macquarie Tower
Level 35, 1 Farrer Place, SYDNEY NSW 2000
Telephone:
(02) 9228 5661

KEEP BATS IN SYDNEY’S BOTANIC GARDENS!

The Royal Botanic Gardens wishes to evict its colony of Grey headed flying-foxes in spite of the bats being recorded in Sydney Cove by Watkin Tench in 1788. To us this is vandalizing Australia’s living history and is deeply disrespectful of indigenous values. Botanic Gardens, of all places, cannot be frozen slices of the past. They must reflect the changed realities of the present. This means valuing the nation’s wildlife, understanding the threat of climate change and by being a responsible scientific institution cognizant of Australia’s record of extinctions. Write to Sydney’s Botanic Gardens and ask them to safeguard the colony as a duty and priveledge -
Royal Botanic Gardens Sydney,
Mrs Macquaries Rd, Sydney NSW 2000

VAFA will continue to support Melbourne’s flying fox colony and to assist those helping injured bats while lobbying for political `upstream` changes for the protection of all bats across Australia because
Bats = Biodiversity. Ecosystems denunded of native species lose function and die.

Grey-headed flying foxes hit the snooze button in Melbourne’s Yarra Bend Park.
Photographer Ian Kitchen