The Coalition for the Protection of Greyhounds has released their latest review into greyhound rehoming and post-racing welfare in Australia.
The review uses the industry’s own data to demonstrate that Australia’s greyhound racing industry continues to breed, exploit and dispose of thousands of dogs each year — with minimal oversight, accountability, or genuine regard for their welfare.
The data shows a national greyhound racing system marked by chronic overbreeding, under-resourced rehoming, and widespread killing of healthy dogs. The worst-performing states — NSW, VIC and QLD — dominate national breeding and therefore drive the industry’s ongoing failure to protect greyhounds at scale.
Critical findings
The industry rehoming organisations (GAPs) rehomed just 3,580 dogs, fewer than the combined total offloaded through unregulated pathways.
Unregulated third-party adoptions more than doubled, exposing greyhounds to unnecessary euthanasia and abandonment.
Community rescue groups continued to pick up the slack in industry rehoming, despite receiving no formal funding or support.
Overbreeding remains rampant, with 8,633 pups whelped — nearly 2.5 times the number adopted via GAPs.
Euthanasia climbed to 1,772 dogs, the highest figure since 2019, as the industry maintained its reliance on killing dogs that are older, injured, or need rehabilitation.*
* This number includes 232 greyhounds reported in combined euthanasia/deceased categories where states do not provide a breakdown.
Click here to view and download the full report.
Welfare failures exposed
Behind the numbers lie darker truths. Dogs “retained” by the industry are often confined on rural properties, sometimes for up to 23 hours a day, with little enrichment or socialisation.
Greyhounds are quietly funneled into research labs, including 108 in Queensland, most of whom are killed. NSW also reported laboratory use of greyhounds for the third consecutive year, signalling a disturbing national trend.
Unregulated, third-party adoptions are now a major exit route, leaving greyhounds vulnerable to neglect, abuse, or secret euthanasia
Worst of all are the hidden atrocities: reports from NSW detail dogs’ body parts found in firepits, greyhound corpses dumped on properties, and dogs discovered frozen in chests — all of which the regulator failed to prosecute or properly investigate.
There is no national welfare oversight, tracking or reporting on greyhounds bred by the Australian greyhound racing industry.
Each state has developed their own tracking and reporting systems, many of which are inconsistent, unreliable and designed to obscure the specific details of greyhound breeding, rehoming and euthanasia.
Victoria, SA and Tasmania bundle together community rescues, third-party adoptions, and dogs retained by the industry, obscuring the true scale and outcomes of these pathways.
State racing bodies have also designed cynical and often cruel solutions to their rehoming crisis. Unregulated private rehoming is being deliberately encouraged with dogs being handed off through private sales, giveaways, or classified ads — with no vetting, tracking or aftercare.
Queensland has only recently introduced rules to stop hundreds of greyhounds being sent to their death at the University of Queensland and other research and veterinary facilities.
Whole-of-life tracking continues to be a national myth. No jurisdiction follows dogs from birth to death. Even in states with digital tracking systems, dogs vanish once handed to third parties or exported overseas.
State-based failures
The NT is the only jurisdiction that supplies no public data on greyhound rehoming, injuries, or deaths.
Victoria had the lowest total rehoming rate relative to breeding, with only 72% of the number of pups whelped in FY2024 rehomed.
NSW had the weakest performance by its official GAP, with just 36% of rehomed dogs passing through GAP — despite receiving the industry’s largest budget.
NSW exports the majority of its GAP dogs overseas, with 54% sent to the US and Canada rather than rehomed locally.
NSW retained the highest proportion of greyhounds within the racing industry (38%) — yet provides no transparency about these dogs’ living conditions or long-term outcomes.
Third-party rehoming — an unregulated and opaque exit pathway — remains highest in NSW (19%), followed closely by WA (just under 19%).
Queensland recorded the highest euthanasia rate in the country, killing 48% of the number of dogs it bred in FY2024.
An unreformable industry
CPG makes a number of recommendations in the review which must be implemented if the greyhound racing industry and state governments are serious about real reform. Foremost among these is the introduction of breeding limits to curb the excessive over-breeding of greyhounds across Australia.
However, as this review shows, this is not an industry being reformed — it’s one being carefully disguised. Tasmania’s decision to phase out the industry offers a rare opportunity to address systemic welfare failures, but until independent oversight, national tracking, and real accountability are enforced across Australia, greyhounds will continue to suffer and die behind closed doors.