Australia’s greyhound racing industry is in turmoil following news that the activity will be banned in New South Wales as of next year.

On Thursday, NSW Premier Mike Baird announced that greyhound racing would be prohibited as of July 1, 2017. Baird said the decision was based on the findings of a Special Commission of Inquiry that was established last year after “very disturbing reports emerged of cruelty to animals and other illegal activities.”

Those activities were spotlighted in an episode of the investigative television program Four Corners, which included hidden camera footage of so-called ‘live baiting,’ aka the use of live animals – rabbits, piglets, etc. – to train the dogs to race. We’ll spare you the details, but the bait animals typically didn’t survive past the end of the race.

Baird’s Commission also revealed the scale of ‘wastage,’ otherwise known as trainers ridding their stables of dogs deemed too slow to win races. The Commission found that as many as 68,448 greyhounds – about half the total population in the state – had been killed over the past 12 years for not possessing the necessary traits of a winner.