Ragwort Awareness Week : More false information on British Horse Society Facebook page

It is happening again. A few days ago I blogged about misinformation, hysteria and even admissions of criminal acts on a Facebook page which is run by the British Horse Society.

Today we have another person saying incorrect things this time on the main British Horse Society Facebook page.

All councils now seem to be neglecting the ragwort problem on grass verges which I understood to be illegal.

Roadside verges are not a significant problem. Ragwort seeds do not disperse long distances to any significant degree. We know from measurement studies that most of them fall at the base of the plant and that the rest fall within a few metres. We also know this from studies of the physics of the seed dispersal.

But of course the real problem is that this is repeating the myth that ragwort is illegal. This is nonsense. There is a previous posting about ragwort law here.

This is no surprise that people associated with the BHS misunderstand the law because this Registered Charity has been misinforming people about the law for years. One of their leaflets was stopped by the Advertising Standards Authority for doing just this.