Kittens used to bait greyhounds
Two men have been charged with serious animal cruelty for allegedly using kittens as live bait in greyhound training.
Queensland Police said the men, aged 26 and 62, from Coominya, west of Brisbane, used the kittens between August 2014 and May 2015.
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They were charged with two counts each of serious animal cruelty offences and are due to appear in the Ipswich Magistrates Court next week.
A joint Queensland Police and RSPCA taskforce has been investigating cruelty in the greyhound racing industry after the ABC’s Four Corners program in February uncovered the extent of live baiting.
To date, 23 people have been arrested on 65 charges.
The Four Corners program showed footage of live piglets, possums and rabbits being fixed to mechanical lures and catapulted around tracks while being chased, and eventually killed, by dogs.
One clip from the footage, secretly filmed at training tracks in Queensland and Victoria, showed dogs being allowed to attack a writhing possum suspended from a lure.
Live baiting has been banned and criminalised for decades, but trainers and owners across the country have been using the illegal training method in the belief that it will improve a dog’s performance.