“This industry is responsible for the unnecessary deaths of anywhere between 13,000 and 17,000 healthy greyhounds a year”, the document stated.
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Counsel assisting the Special Commission of Inquiry, Stephen Rushton, SC, also said it was a “myth” that GRNSW put the welfare on animals first.
He doubted it was possible for the industry to adopt measures to maintain animal welfare standards.
The inquiry into greyhound racing has until March 2016 to present its findings.
In his opening address to the inquiry, Mr Rushton said: “Thousands and thousands of healthy young greyhounds are destroyed for no other reason than that they did not cut the mustard”.
The New South Wales inquiry set up to examine allegations of horrific practices broadcast by the ABC’s Four Corners in February heard on Monday live-baiting was rampant in the industry.
A greyhound trainer who entered the sport just three years ago says he used live animals to bait his dogs 14 times because “that was just the way you do it”.
“You were told that it was – this is a witness’s words, not mine – “either the bunnies or the dogs”, Rushton told the inquiry.
“Why would an industry which is prepared to use small, vulnerable, helpless animals to blood its young greyhounds in pursuit of money care at all whether it bred too many animals?”
Cages of live rabbits were openly supplied at greyhound race tracks for the objective of live-baiting, an inquiry has heard.
“These figures are a bad indictment of greyhound racing in Australia”, Rushton said, adding that the industry’s “cavalier” attitude raised questions about whether it should even exist.
“The failure to keep and publish records has quite clearly assisted the industry and its participants”, Rushton said. The High Court judge presiding, Michael McHugh, called the figures “appalling”.
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He said GRNSW admitted that animal welfare had historically been treated as a “hygiene issue”.
