Monday 26 August 2013

More foolish ragwort comments from an equine professional

A while ago I posted an account of how the BBC had encouraged law breaking on ragwort.
and that they had broadcast a statement from someone who had contacted them making the silly claim that ragwort was not a native plant.

I regularly post accounts of how equine professionals seem to  make silly and ignorant statements on ragwort. Like this one where a vet posts a link to really nutty material or this one on the same nutty material and on getting the law wrong. and as I have blogged before  it seems even an equine veterinary professor is not beyond making quite serious mistakes.

Well I have tracked down the originator of the statement. He has, it seems, been bragging about it on facebook on a page commenting about the BBC programme.

Richard Halls Had my say last night, one group was saying ragwort was ok. I said its[sic] not native coming from South America and was spread by the railways.

Mr Halls is of course wrong. The ragwort in question is a native plant. He will have quite well have had botanists groaning around the country at this foolish ignorance. There is a ragwort that is reckoned to have spread around the railway network but this is a very different and smaller plant called Oxford Ragwort. It doesn't come from South America but from Mt Etna in Italy.

But the facebook account reveals more. He is an Equine Dental Technician. This is is yet another example of the phenomenon, perhaps caused by the nonsense in  the press,of an equine professional not knowing their stuff.

 
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