Ragwort risk – death of one horse is too many

HOWARD Frost’s article about ragwort (Yorkshire Post, August 13) raised some interesting points. He is certainly correct in stating that animals are often at increased risk from the dead plant, as it loses its bitter taste but none of its toxicity.

No doubt ragwort has its part to play in biodiversity and the lifecycle of a variety of insects, although some of these insects also live on plants other than common ragwort.

Mr Frost mentioned that, as post-mortems are rarely carried out in order to establish the exact cause of liver damage, ragwort is likely to get the blame for deaths it is not responsible for.

While this is almost certainly the case, the reverse is also true – there will doubtless be cases of ragwort poisoning which go undetected because the death is attributed to some other cause. The reality is that, while it is currently impossible to say exactly how many animals are killed by ragwort poisoning each year, we do know that it is highly toxic to horses and that its effect is cumulative.

Owners can rarely be sure how much ragwort their horse may have consumed in the past and therefore which mouthful may prove to be the fatal one.

While ragwort has its place in our countryside, that place must not be within grazing pastures or in fields used for hay crops. No matter how great or small the risk, we would always urge horse owners to do their best to ensure their horses never have access to ragwort, either growing or cut.

Death by ragwort poisoning is an utterly horrific end and, as it is also entirely avoidable, one horse killed by this is one horse too many.