Western Morning News (Saturday)
E-collars save lives of dogs and sheep
Electronic dog collars have proved successful in training dogs not to attack sheep, says Bridgwater and West Somerset Conservative MP Ian Liddell-Grainger. So why, he asks Defra Secretary and Camborne & Redruth MP George Eustice in an open letter, is the Government considering banning them?
DEAR George,
One of the surest indicators of the arrival of spring, in my book, is the annual, seasonal surge in attacks on sheep and other farm animals.
And drawing to your attention the appalling rates of death and injury has become so necessary so often I could almost put a note in my diary to do so as I mark it up at the beginning of the year.
A scan of the recent problems shows what a scale this menace has reached: 25 December – 30 sheep killed in Cheshire; 10 January – 18 sheep killed in Yorkshire; 15 January – 150 sheep killed in Monmouthshire; 27 January – 13 sheep killed in Warwickshire.
And there will be more. There always are because so far no government has done enough to introduce genuine deterrent measures. So irresponsible dog owners continue routinely to allow their animals to visit havoc on the livelihoods of hundreds of farmers.
It is a national disgrace, an utter shame, George, when – by your own department’s figures – we are allowing some 15,000 sheep to be killed in the most gruesome and (for the farmer) distressing circumstances each year.
It is an appalling abdication of governmental responsibility when some farms in particularly vulnerable areas may experience more than 100 attacks a year. And it is infuriating for me and scores of other MPs with rural constituencies to have to approach Defra year after tedious year pleading for something to be done to halt the carnage.
We have become quite used to, I regret to say, receiving little by way of a positive response to our pleadings. But for the Government to be considering outlawing one of the most effective remedies – the use of electronic collars – is setting a new and disturbing benchmark for indifference towards the financial losses and emotional pressure the farming community suffers.
Electronic collars have been shown to be highly effective in instilling an aversive association with sheep – something which works even if the dog has escaped its owner’s control and is ranging the countryside alone.
After a short period of training, as video evidence shows, even a dog which has previously killed a sheep can be let loose near them without any harm ensuing.
Clearly someone has been nobbled by some hand-wringing, urban-based animal welfare lobby which is unhappy at the thought of dogs being trained via small and highly controlled electric shocks.
Clearly, equally, people who campaign on this issue have never seen a farmer having to load up a trailer with mangled sheep carcases after a dog has rampaged through the flock. Farmers are a pretty hardbitten lot, as you should well know George, but experiences like this cut very deep indeed and are pretty well guaranteed to add to the intense psychological pressure many farmers are currently experiencing.
And I really would not like to be in your shoes, George, if we followed the same route as the Welsh Assembly, banned e-collars and saw an immediate doubling in the number of attacks.
I might point out that not only the National Sheep Association but vets support the use of e-collars and the really important point is that in this case prevention really is better than cure. Particularly since the only cure we have at our disposal is a scale of inadequate penalties to inflict on careless dog owners and, of course, the farmers’ right to shoot the offending dog.
E-collars could thus save the lives of both sheep and dogs. I wonder, therefore, if you could outline how this is anything but an entirely humane approach to the situation.