Worry over stray horses in Llanelli
Horses are running wild over 14 miles of Llanelli coastline from Bynea to Kidwelly.
Irresponsible horse owners are risking huge claims for damages or causing accidents with the horses running over parks, gardens and roads and putting lives at risk.
Carmarthenshire County Council is photographing the horses to match up identities with known owners.
Thirteen horses were counted at Penclacwydd marshes where one was found dying of hypothermia last week, eight at Pwll Park and another was found roaming on the old Khymer Canal off Kidwelly Quay.
Carmarthenshire council has been fielding scores of complaints but the horses are a moving group and rarely stay in the same place long enough to be caught.
Millennium Coastal Park rangers rounded up eight horses in Pwll Park after complaints from the public (on Thurday) who called the police who in term contacted the council. The horses in the meantime escaped down to Burry Port on the old haul road.
Ownership of the horses has to be established before any prosecutions can be brought and damage costs imposed. The council has capture and auction the horses but prices are currently at rock bottom and horses on the hoof have been fetching as little as £5 a head at auction.
Owners are thought to be letting the horses roam to seek their own feed and shelter in the freezing conditions and many have been found in a bad way and reported to the RSPCA.
Technically the responsibility of capture of the horses lies with the landowner where they have been found. Private landowners just push the horses on to the highway when they become the responsibility of the police or adjacent landowners to rid themselves of the immediate problem.
MCP Park manager Rory Dickinson said: “This is a huge problem. Any chance of recouping high costs of rounding up horses from auctioning them is lost because of the collapse of the market and owners are just laughing at authority, the police and ourselves as the horses run rings round us all.
“We are now looking an identifying them with known photographic records held of owners and land where they have been previously kept secured and where possible likely prosecutions will follow.”
Irresponsible horse owners are risking huge claims for damages or causing accidents with the horses running over parks, gardens and roads and putting lives at risk.
Carmarthenshire County Council is photographing the horses to match up identities with known owners.
Thirteen horses were counted at Penclacwydd marshes where one was found dying of hypothermia last week, eight at Pwll Park and another was found roaming on the old Khymer Canal off Kidwelly Quay.
Carmarthenshire council has been fielding scores of complaints but the horses are a moving group and rarely stay in the same place long enough to be caught.
Millennium Coastal Park rangers rounded up eight horses in Pwll Park after complaints from the public (on Thurday) who called the police who in term contacted the council. The horses in the meantime escaped down to Burry Port on the old haul road.
Ownership of the horses has to be established before any prosecutions can be brought and damage costs imposed. The council has capture and auction the horses but prices are currently at rock bottom and horses on the hoof have been fetching as little as £5 a head at auction.
Owners are thought to be letting the horses roam to seek their own feed and shelter in the freezing conditions and many have been found in a bad way and reported to the RSPCA.
Technically the responsibility of capture of the horses lies with the landowner where they have been found. Private landowners just push the horses on to the highway when they become the responsibility of the police or adjacent landowners to rid themselves of the immediate problem.
MCP Park manager Rory Dickinson said: “This is a huge problem. Any chance of recouping high costs of rounding up horses from auctioning them is lost because of the collapse of the market and owners are just laughing at authority, the police and ourselves as the horses run rings round us all.
“We are now looking an identifying them with known photographic records held of owners and land where they have been previously kept secured and where possible likely prosecutions will follow.”
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