Horse and Hound An Inaccurate Article on Ragwort

The May 3rd edition of Horse and Hound contains  an article on liver damage in horses that is accompanied by the most dreadful misinformation on Ragwort. They state:

"150,000 the number of seeds each ragwort flower carries"

This is clearly wrong. these are figures for normal ragwort plants at 8 sites that are documented in one of the best papers on ragwort ecology.

4,760
5,900
11,690
13,370
47,600
63,700
117,740
120,400

Clearly it is wrong to state that each flower carries such a large amount

more detailed scientific information is availavle on this article on Ragwort Seed Production

"70 the percentage of ragwort seeds from every flower that will go on to germinate"

This is also clearly wrong. Many seeds will not fall in a suitable place and the germination percentage, which is in the range that quite normal for many plants, is a laboratory figure. On average only one plant will be produced from each parent. Indeed it will be less than that since we know that ragwort is actually decreasing.

Horse and Hound has been printing the most dreadfully inaccurate information on ragwort for years and this is only the latest example.

Country Land and Business Association's Nonsense on Ragwort

The Country Land and Business Association has just put some real nonsense about ragwort  on their website. They start with this:-

Following the early hot weather and heavy rain in April ragwort is rife this year.

I wrote about this odd claim that ragwort is increasing because of the weather- any weather before. Last year Horse and Hound claimed :-

Cold weather in November and December, followed by a mild January have caused the deadly weed ragwort to start to grow early.

The actual facts are that the latest government survey shows that ragwort is DECREASING. There is in any case nothing in the scientific literature which I have seen that would support either claim about the weather affecting ragwort. What is actually happening is more notice is being paid to theamount of ragwort, because of the hysteria.

However some really ignorant  nonsense from the CLA follows.

The Council does not have responsibility for dealing with ragwort on private land. As a result members are reminded that as Ragwort is a notifiable weed it is the responsibility of the landowner to remove it from private land.

There is no such thing in UK law as a "notifiable weed." The CLA have got it badly wrong and are misinforming their members. There is no automatic legal responsibility to remove ragwort from private land.

They should remember too that there is no evidence that ragwort is a serious risk to livestock. The inflated figures for horses have been conclusively shown to be WRONG.

This link will give you the law.

British Horse Society Spokesperson's Gaffes on Ragwort

The British Horse Society have again, it seems, been distributing scare stories about ragwort and this time their spokesperson  appears to  have demonstrated very very clearly the ignorance of basic biological knowledge that characterises the hysteria over the plant.

This matter is over a BBC Radio Wales broadcast where unfortunately the BBC chose to put on air a person whom , it appears,  was just repeating things she had heard., without having a proper technical understanding of the issue. To be frank, from the viewpoint of a knowledgeable person,  it seems she made a right fool of herself.

Rose Brooke,  who the  BBC lists as the BHS press officer for North East Wales,  went on radio and gave an interview that she seemed  ill prepared to make. It appeared to be full of gaffes, real howlers of gaffes!

First of all she started by saying that a spoonful of ragwort could harm a horse and went on in the course of the interview to say that the ragwort would make the animal sick for years and years and years.

The reality is that horses avoid ragwort., and this is backed up by many scientific papers and experts around the world. It is basic elementary science that they would do so. It isn't just because ragwort tastes terrible, because of the bitter taste. The bitter taste exists because it is poisonous. Nature created a system in all animals called taste. It is different in different animals, but the bitterness factor developed because of  need to detect and avoid poisons. Those animals who did not have a good working taste system died and did not pass on their genes.

There are two possible circumstances where there might be a problem . Where the ragwort is dried an in hay, and where the animal is being starved to death and eats poison out of desperation. Neither is the case here.

Toxic doses of ragwort to a horse are not usually measured in spoonfulls, but often  in percentages of body weight which for a horse is a lot.


The BHS seems to have been doing this all around the country. Putting up people with poor knowledge to make press statements and getting things badly wrong. Often the journalists don't know anything either and the nonsense gets printed or broadcast. More people believe the nonsense and it multiplies. On this occasion though the BBC  had some information from an expert , which they used rather badly, and at least some of the ignorance was , it would appear, revealed..

When questioned about the environmental benefits of ragwort she just didn't seem to know anything much . Instead of mentioning the many invertebrates which require ragwort , it seemed she only knew about the Cinnabar Moth and then proceeded to get its biology hopelessly wrong. "There is a theory" she said that the Cinnabar Moth feeds on ragwort. Well it isn't a theory!. It is a solid hard FACT. It really is questionable that a registered charity should raise its funding profile using people who will talk about fact  and theories when they don't appear to know the difference . Then came a series of really bad statements. She said the moth fed on the flowers when it actually eats the whole plant and then, quite dreadfully, said that it only lives for a day!. Cinnabar moths stay on the wing for weeks and have a year long life cycle!

She then goes on to say that there is evidence for this, from Professor Derek Knottenbelt. This professor's claims are worthy of several blog postings, but let's suffice to say they a  do not appear to be supported in any way by the evidence, or by the opinions of all the experts with whom I regularly correspond.
He has claimed that based on his research, that thousands of horses are dying from ragwort poisoning a year. A freedom of information request to his university shows that over the last five years for which records have been disclosed 2006-2010 the number of recorded  cases of ragwort poisoning in horses is exactly ZERO.

Rose Brooke didn't seem to know much about the work done there anyway. She said that the horses had to be operated on. This doesn't appear to be normal for this kind of liver damage, beyond a simple biopsy. It just seems to be another example of her ignorance.
 
Ignorance is no crime. We are all more ignorant of more things than we are knowledgeable about, but the real fault seems to lie with the charity which put someone up to speak for them who, it seems, was simply not up to the job. It seems that they too have been made to look right fools!

There is a well known phenomenon in psychology called "The Dunning-Kruger Effect" where in which unskilled individuals think they are cleverer than they are, mistakenly rating their ability much higher than average. This appears to be a clear example of it. When Rose Brooke is confronted with evidence from an expert she laughs as if it is wrong. Well, unfortunately for her there will have been quite a few knowledgable people laughing or groaning at her poor knowledge of entomology.

Rose Brooke does however, deserve some sympathy. She is not the only person who it appears is misled by the hysteria over ragwort. She gives the impression that she is probably a very kind and  nice person, who frightened by the misinformation, is concerned about the welfare of animals.  It is quite understandable that ordinary people do not appear to have the technical knowledge to see through the nonsense. As I said,  real fault is apparently with the charity which appears to have a poor knowledge of the scientific method itself.

The BHS have seem to have a poor record  on ragwort information as is evidenced by their leaflet on Ragwort  and  series of adverts repeaing their information that were stopped after action by the Advertising Standards Authority.



You can listen to a clip covering the entire  item from BBC Radio Wales here

As ever proper information can be found on these websites.

Ragwort Facts

Ragwort Myths and Facts

SSSI being damaged?

This appears to be an example of habitat being damaged on an SSSI due to the hysteria about ragwort. This is what is said on the Downland Views Blog

The first job of the New Year was to get over to Saltbox SSSI to dig up the Ragwort. Although Ragwort is the host plant for the Cinnabar Moth,

It isn't just the Cinnabar Moth as ragwort is one of the most important plants for invertebrates.

it is, unfortunately, also very toxic to grazing animals and eventually the effects can kill them.

Despite what we are told the scientific literature shows that the only real risk is from hay. Grazing animals avoid poisonous plants instinctively. Those who didn't had their genes removed from the populations millions of years ago. It is also worth remembering that these alkaloids occur in 3% of all flowering plants and yet we only hear about ragwort.

Horses are particularly sensitive to the plant if eaten and for this reason one is obliged by Defra's Code of Practice, to remove it if there are grazing animals near by.

Just because someone in authority says something it doesn't mean they are right! This is guidance from government and it contains a number of flaws including using suspect sources for the number of horse deaths. We now know, from analysis of the published statistics, that more horses are recorded dying from Equine Grass Sickness than from Ragwort poisoning. Equine Grass Sickeness is a rare malady caused essentially by eating fresh grass (Although the actual disease is more complex) It is rare, but ragwort poisoning is rarer! If more horses die from eating grass than from eating ragwort it is clear that the problem of ragwort is being over emphasised. There are far worse problems which should come before ragwort control especially when it results in damage to habitat on SSSIs.

We thought we had cleared the Ragwort from Saltbox in the summer but, worryingly, not only are there plants still flowering and producing seed heads (each plant can produce 150,000 seeds!!)

Ah the widespread figure of 150,000 seeds again. A man can grow to 7 foot tall too, but neither figure is normal. The best reference work on Ragwort Ecology is perhaps that published by John L Harper and W.A Wood in the July 1957 edition of the Journal of Ecology. These are a set of figures for normally grown ragwort plants. Each one is a figure recorded on a separate site.
4,760
5,900
11,690
13,370
47,600
63,700
117,740
It is perhaps understandable that, given the bad information in circulation, that people believe that ragwort is worse than it is but it really is not acceptable that our finest wildlife sites may be being damaged as a result of bad information and hysteria and that government guidance appears to be facilitating it.

It is even getting into the textbooks now!

It is bad enough when things appear in the newspapers that are incorrect. There is at least an opportunity to write a letter correcting it but when things get into textbooks there is a real problem. Any bad information tends to be believed even more strongly. A case in point is the textbook Practical Horse Law - A Guide For Owners and Riders by Brenda Gilligan which makes the following incorrect statement.

"Under the Weeds Act 1959, ragwort is an 'injurious weed' and one that on agricultural land must be controlled."

This is not the case. The Weeds Act does NOT say that ragwort must be controlled on agricultural land. It gives powers, that were apparently never used until the current hysteria, to order ragwort control where it is thought necessary. This is a completely different matter and the current guidance issued after the publication of the book says that ragwort should not be controlled everywhere. You can hardly blame the author for getting it wrong. This is a common myth that has been put out repeatedly by the anti-ragwort campaign. The British Horse Society had one of their leaflets stopped by the advertising standards authority for saying just this kind of thing and even after this they carried on saying it on one of their websites!

East Sussex Council distributing false information

East Sussex Council is distributing false information about ragwort on the internet
In their Document on highway responsibilities they make this FALSE STATEMENT.

It is also an offence to allow certain weeds to spread from your land onto the highway verge, including ragwort and certain types of thistles and docks.

This is NOT true.

There is no such offence in UK law. The council, like many, has not checked its facts.
For a full briefing on the law see Ragwort Law

Badshot Lea Equestrian Centre WRONG on ragwort

It has been a little while since I blogged here. It isn't for want of material.

The latest little story comes from the Badshot Lea Equestrian Centre's blog
Where it says.

Make sure you wear gloves when touching ragwort. We don't let kids handle it at all. It can give you flu like symptoms and make you feel quite grotty.

The story about ragwort poisoning you through the skin has been thoroughly debunked. There is no evidence to support it.

You can read this article on ragwort absorption throught the skin which is co-authored by a man with a Phd on ragwort.

But in this case it the usual story has been embellished with the story of flu like symptoms. These are not usual for the alkaloids in Ragwort, but this is of course how it happens on the internet. One person says it and it is repeated uncritically by others and suddenly like a lot of the ragwort scare stories a lot of people believe in it, even though there is no evidence to support it.

It probably is a good idea to wear gloves when handling ragwort as some people can get a rash from handling members of the daisy family. This however has nothing to do with ragwort causing the rare animal deaths that it does. It is caused by a different set of chemicals.