One hundred sled dogs were slaughtered because many were "not adoptable" and either old or sick, according to the former business owner at the centre of a controversial cull.

The killings have made headlines across Canada and even internationally, and the controversy has resulted in an investigation by the RCMP and SPCA. The incident prompted B.C. Premier Gordon Campbell to call for the creation of a task force to probe the deaths.

But former Howling Dog Tours owner Robert Fawcett, who sold his sled dog business to another company called Outdoor Adventures, said that euthanizing the animals was the only choice.

"These dogs live to run and were not able to do so and would have had to be kept in cages with the result that they would have had very poor or virtually no quality of life," Fawcett said in a joint statement with Outdoor Adventures.

Fawcett had been general manager of Howling Dog Tours but had contracted the animals out to Outdoor Adventures, which also had financial share in the company. However, Outdoor Adventures has stated that it didn't take over control of Howling Dog Tours until a month after the cull, which occurred in April of 2010.

WorkSafe BC documents allege that up to 100 dogs were killed. The documents contain vivid details about the killings. The documents were made after the employee was given workplace compensation relating to post-traumatic stress linked to the cull.

The documents also allege that the dogs were shot and then dumped into a grave following the collapse of the business after the 2010 Winter Games.

Still, the statement from Fawcett doesn't mention 100 dogs. Instead, it only mentions 50 which the company said had to be put down.

There have been suggestions that there was pressure to get rid of some of the dogs, according to the WorkSafe reports.

The statement also says that there had been "considerable" effort to get the dogs adopted, but "the efforts at adoption were not as successful as hoped."

The statement goes on to say that no explicit instructions were given on how to kill the dogs.

Fawcett had served a board that oversees voluntary guidelines for the industry. He has since been removed from the board.

"We're not assigning any guilt on him and we certainly don't have any more information than anyone else," said Karen Ramstead, president of Mush with Pride.

"We just felt that our bylaws allowed for this if a board member was bringing unwanted attention to Mush with Pride, which is what we felt this situation was doing. It was not portraying Mush with Pride in the light that we felt was going to further our cause."

With files from The Canadian Press