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Posted by GoatWorld on August 21, 2002 at 10:04:11:
TIME BOMB" WARNING ON KILLER WEED
By Andrew Arbuckle and Liz Fowler
PRETTY IT may be, but ragwort with its bright yellow flowers is also a very poisonous weed and yesterday the Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals issued a warning that the "explosion" of this plant in our countryside was a "potential time bomb."
The SSPCA said that ragwort was one of the most frequent causes of poisoning of livestock in the United Kingdom.
Senior SSPCA inspector Paul Anderson said that any animal eating the plant would suffer degradation of the liver and would often die within a couple of days.
There is no remedy for the poison and even those animals that had eaten a small amount of ragwort over a long period would soon lose condition and die within a matter of weeks.
Horses are particularly badly affected, but cattle, deer and goats also suffer. Only sheep seem to have a degree of resistance to the alkaloids in the plant.
The danger lies not only in the growing plant, poisoning often takes place when hay containing ragwort is fed to livestock.
The plant flowers from May to September and has bright yellow flowers.
It appears to thrive in wetter climates and it has become very prolific in fields where no controls have been taken or along roadside verges.
Because it is classified as an "injurious" weed, it is an offence to allow it to be grown on land and the SSPCA asked that anyone concerned about any area where it was grown should report the problem to the local office of the Scottish Executive Rural Affairs Department.
No figures were available from the Scottish Executive last night on the number of complaints they had received, but a spokesman said the issue was dealt with locally.
Department officials initially take the advisory line with landowners who allow the plants to grow on their land and against whom complaints are made.
If this does not produce action, they can serve notice on the offenders.
A third line of action that can take place if no remedial work is done by the landowner is that the department can carry out the work and then bill the landowner.
However, the official said there were no records of this last sanction ever having been carried out.
A spokesperson for the SSPCA said it seemed as if there would need to be a fatality through someone eating some of the plant before positive action was taken in dealing with the problem. However, she hoped the initiative by the SSPCA would get landowners to remove the weed.
Perth and Kinross Council said last night that the council had certain obligations to ensure that roadside verges were kept clear of weeds, such as ragwort.
"If the council discovers isolated pockets of ragwort on roadside verges they will be dealt with, thus preventing the infestation spreading," said a spokesman.
"If, however, there is infestation both upon verges and on adjacent private land, it is not practical for the council alone to treat the area for which they are responsible, as the infestation would only spread once more from the private land.
"The council will happily co-operate with any landowner to jointly rid the area of ragwort.
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