Ragwort bill, about time!

[shaka]

I am pleased to say to all those of you who do not yet know, that the Ragwort Bill has received its royal assent and will come into force on February 20 2004
Root out Ragwort!
Hopefully this bill will help save lives of so many innocent animals. Unfortunately for many and quite a few other people including me on this board, it has to late, but hopefully now other horses and ponies and donkeys will be spared the fate those ponies and horses and donkeys had.

[shandy84]

so what does the bill actually mean? Sorry to be dumb

[Bloss]

finally :) :p :D :) :D

[emma314]

Thanks for the news, Shaka. My pony died of ragwort poisoning too so it is an issue that is very close to my heart.

Shandy, the bill is to prevent the spread of ragwort and to control it. The BHS and DEFRA have made a Code of Practice which will be available to landowners so they know how to control ragwort on their land. This is all aimed at reducing the numbers of equines that can be killed by liver poisoning, caused by eating ragwort.

http://www.defra.gov.uk/rural/horses/topics/ragwort.htm

[artemis]

Also most important landowners can be prosicuted if they do not deal with the problem.

I always contact the local authorities in our area asking them to deal with it, usually they say they can't afford it, so I hope this new Bll has more teeth than the last one!:rolleyes:

[doris]

I will just wait and see if any guilty landowners actually take notice of this new bill, and also, if anything will be done to them if they don't take notice. It's going to be very difficult to 'police' such a bill, but I will stay hopeful.

[Ryoko]

oh finally! i've had such a bother with ragwort over the last few years...i've known 3 horses who died from poisoning and countless other animals. i have a ragfork (which by the way is very good and gets it all up ) and i burn all of my findings. in britain they used to have a day where they needed to get all of the ragwort up by...i think this was the day before it is supposed to seed:rolleyes: not that i can remember ! thankyou for sharing your information i'm going to go and give my mother the good news :D