In The August September edition of Wytchwood a community newspaper serving the Cotswolds Dinah Harris an officer of the British Horse society had an article that claimed that ragwort was an "environmental disaster in Oxfordshire".
Here are some of the other bad claims it made.
Ragwort is the most common cause of poisoning in livestock in Britain.
Poisoning by ragwort is indistinguishable from poisoning from a great deal of other plants and also indistinguishable from certain kinds of poisoning caused by bad hay. There is no evidential justification for this. See Ragwort poisoning there is no test
A pony dies after eating as little as 2lbs.This is entirely at odds with the published evidence which shows that much much more is required to kill a horse.
A government survey later showed that ragwort had been declining. It is a native plant and other flowers have always survived alongside it.Not only is the plant spreading at an alarming rate across our common and open spaces, it is smothering and killing rare wild flowers such as the green winged orchid and the delicate harebell. Once we lose these wild flowers they will never return.
Altogether the article is hysterical and irrational in tone scaremongering people into destroying ragwort.
Advertising Standards Authority
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