A dog attack on a sheep flock in Co. Kerry at the weekend that left 11 lambs dead and 18 injured has sparked demand for “concrete measures” to deal with the issue.
Farmer Tomás O’Leary made the grim discovery around 9:30a.m on Saturday (August 5) when he was checking his sheep and cattle, kept in several groups at his out-farm in Beaufort, Co. Kerry.
The farmer said he knew something was wrong when he found his last group of lambs huddled together “in an awful state” in the field furthest from the yard.
“I went around the field and I did a headcount. There were lambs all over the field in different parts; there were 11 in total that were dead,” he said.
Some of the dead lowland lambs, born in March, were quite near finishing, while others would have been ewe lambs selected for future breeding.
Following that dog attack, the Irish Natura and Hill Farmers’ Association (INHFA) – which counts a large number of sheep farmers among its membership – called on the government to deal with the “increased frequency” of these attacks.
Speaking this morning (Wednesday, August 9), the organisation’s national vice-president, John Joe Fitzgerald said that, while an inter-departmental working group, that was established last February, made a number of recommendations to address the problem, “nothing concrete has been delivered that will reassure sheep farmers around the ongoing threat of dog attacks”.
“In our correspondence with [Minister for Rural and Community Development Heather Humphreys] there seems to be a lack of urgency around this,” he said.
Fitzgerald called for the minister and her department to meet with farming organisations on the issue “as soon as possible”.
“This meeting can provide impacted farmers and their representatives with the opportunity to highlight their concerns and detail the actions necessary to address this increasing problem,” the INHFA vice-president said.
He added: “It will also provide Minister Humphreys and her officials with the opportunity to explain what actions they have planned and the timescales to implement these actions.
“In our [INHFA] policy on public access we have called for the introduction of legislation to ban all non-working dogs from our hills and farmlands.”
According to Fitzgerald, legislation of this type would “remove any ambiguity about access with dogs and challenge the minority that don’t understand or are not willing to respect landowners’ property”.
He said this would have to come with heavy sanctions and strong enforcement.
He also raised the issue of tracking dogs after an attack occurs.
“Many farmers like Tomás O’Leary arrive when the dogs are long gone. There is the added concern that these dogs will return and this could be days or weeks later.
“As part of the microchipping programme, we should look at getting a DNA sample from all dogs, a sample that could potentially be matched from saliva where a sheep attack or an attack against a person has occurred,” Fitzgerald said.
“Farmers are no longer willing to tolerate the total indifference of the responsible authorities in dealing with this very serious matter and need to see immediate action on it,” he added.